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Debt Rattle March 12 2026

Mar 122026
 
 March 12, 2026  Posted by at 10:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  92 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Rosy-fingered Dawn at Louse Point 1963
When I still lived in Holland I would go to the StedelIjk Museum all the time just to see this painting.


• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)
• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)
• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)
• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)
• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)
• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)
• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)
• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)
• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)
• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)
• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico
• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)
• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

 


 

 


 

 


 


92 million people in an ancient civilization, and after just a few days you have ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target? Sounds delusional, perhaps.

• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)

President Trump on Wednesday said that the war with Iran will end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target.” “Little this and that… Any time I want it to end, it will end,” Trump told Axios during a five-minute phone call, adding “The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.” “They were after the rest of the Middle East. They are paying for 47 years of death and destruction they caused. This is payback. They will not get off that easy,” Trump said.


So, Mission Almost Accomplished™ after the Trump administration has given estimates ranging from weeks to months for how long this might take.Yet while Trump is signaling that the operation has largely accomplished its objectives, US and Israeli officials say there’s been no indication of when fighting might stop. As Axios notes further, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that fighting will continue “without any time limit, for as long as necessary, until we achieve all the objectives and decisively win the campaign.” Meanwhile, Israeli and US officials say they’re preparing for at least two more weeks of strikes in Iran.

* * * Update (0930ET): The most significant development in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday was the start of IRGC naval mining operations, which were met with massive U.S. firepower that destroyed 16 mine-laying vessels. As we continue monitoring the maritime chokepoint this morning after IRGC attacks on three commercial vessels, attention is now shifting to the IRGC’s drone production capacity, which appears to have been degraded. Bloomberg reports that 2,100 Shaheds have been fired so far in the 12-day conflict. U.S. forces struck IRGC production facilities, disrupting large-scale manufacturing. The report is based on comments from a senior European official.

“Since the Houthis have produced UAVs under bombardment, one would think the Iranians can, albeit not at the same rates, since facilities have to be dispersed and makeshift workshops used,” Sid Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, told the outlet.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Saudi Arabia’s kill-cost ratio, neutralizing $20,000 IRGC drones with $2 million-plus missiles, has spurred talks with a Ukrainian counter-drone company for cheap interceptor drones.

* * * America-Israel’s Operation Epic Fury entered its 12th day, with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicating that the most intense phase of U.S. strikes is expected on Wednesday. Tehran responded with retaliatory strikes against Gulf neighbors, as Goldman’s foreign affairs chief warned of a growing risk of regional spillover (read here). Overnight, market attention centered on energy, with the IEA reportedly proposing its largest-ever emergency crude release to combat Brent and WTI prices, which have reached triple-digit territory. “The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that’s on one hand,” Hegseth said. “On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet.”

Read more …

“Iran’s Grand Plan to End U.S. Presence in the Middle East..”

• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)

Iran and Donald Trump have each explained why failure to fight the current war to the end would simply lead to a new set of mutual attacks. Trump announced on March 6 that “There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender,” and announced that he must have a voice in naming or at least approving Iran’s new leader, as he has just done in Venezuela. “If the U.S. military must utterly defeat it and bring about a regime change, or else “you go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.’”[1] It will take at least that long for America to replace the weaponry that has been depleted, rebuild its radar and related installations and mount a new war.


Iranian officials likewise recognize that U.S. attacks will keep being repeated until the United States is driven out of the Middle East. Having agreed to a ceasefire last June instead of pressing its advantage when Israeli and regional U.S. anti-missile defenses were depleted, Iran realized that war will be resumed as soon as the United States is able to re-arm its allies and military bases to renew what both sides recognize is to be a fight to some kind of final solution.

The war that began on February 28 can realistically be deemed to be the formal opening of World War III because what is at issue are the terms on which the entire world will be able to buy oil and gas. Can they buy this energy from exporters in currencies other than the dollar, headed by Russia and Iran (and until recently, Venezuela)? Will the present U.S. demand to control of the international oil trade require oil-exporting countries to price it in dollars, and indeed to recycle their export earnings and national savings into investments in U.S. government securities, bonds and stocks?

That recycling of petrodollars has been the basis of America’s financialization and weaponization of the world’s oil trade, and its imperial strategy of isolating countries that resist adherence to the U.S. ruler-based order (no real rules, but simply U.S. ad hoc demands). So what is at issue is not only the U.S. military presence in the Middle East – along with its two proxy armies, Israel and ISIS/al Qaeda jihadists. And the U.S. and Israeli pretense that it is about Iran having atomic weapons of mass destruction is as fictitious an accusation as that levied against Iraq in 2003. What is at issue is ending the Middle East’s economic alliances with the United States and whether its oil-export earnings will continue to be accumulated in dollars as the buttress of the U.S. balance of payments to help pay for its military bases throughout the world.

Iran has announced that it will fight until it achieves three aims to prevent future wars. First and foremost, the United States must withdraw from al its military bases in the Middle East. Iran already has destroyed the backbone of radar warning systems and anti-aircraft and missile defense sites in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, preventing them from guiding U.S. or Israeli missile attacks or attacking Iran. Arab countries have bases or U.S. installations will be bombed if they are not abandoned.

The next two Iranian demands seem to far-reaching that they seem unthinkable to the West. Arab OPEC countries must end their close economic ties to the United States, starting with the U.S. data centers operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. And they not only must stop pricing their oil and gas in U.S. dollars, but disinvest in their existing petrodollars holdings of the U.S. investments that have been subsidizing the U.S. balance of payments since the 1974 agreements that made to gain U.S. permission to quadruple their oil-export prices.

These three demands would end U.S. economic power over OPEC countries, and thus the world oil trade. The result would be to dedollarize the world’s oil trade and re-orient it toward Asia and Global Majority countries. And Iran’s plan involves not only a military and economic defeat for the United States, but an end to the political character of the Near Eastern client monarchies and their relations with their Shi’ite citizens.

Read more …

“Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”

• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)

US intelligence intercepts reveal Iran may be triggering covert operatives abroad, as Tehran issues direct warnings to President Trump following the airstrike death of its former supreme leader. U.S. intelligence has intercepted an encrypted message from Iran that appears to be an “operational trigger” for sleeper cells embedded in foreign countries, raising alarms about potential attacks. This development comes amid ongoing conflict, with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, facing threats from multiple fronts after his father’s death in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike.


https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2031106637662920797


passcodes, with characteristics suggesting it was meant for operatives outside the country. The alert describes the signal as resembling historical methods used to activate covert assets without internet reliance. “The signals could be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,” the alert stated.Concerns are heightened by reports of Iranian-linked operatives using routes like Venezuela to enter Western nations, potentially establishing networks near the U.S.

Security experts warn of threats from both organized cells and lone actors. Former DHS adviser Charles Marino told the Daily Mail that simultaneous attacks by 10-20 people in a cell are possible, targeting soft spots like concerts or sporting events. The upcoming World Cup, a National Special Security Event, is a particular worry. Tensions escalated further with Iran’s defiant response to President Trump’s comments on the new supreme leader. Trump stated on Fox that Mojtaba Khamenei would be unable to “live in peace” and expressed dissatisfaction with the appointment, warning Iran to brace for “death, fire and fury” if it shuts the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani dismissed these as “empty threats,” adding, “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”


This exchange follows the conviction of Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national trained by Iran’s IRGC, for plotting to assassinate Trump during the 2024 race. Merchant was found guilty days ago, with the plot linked to revenge for Qasem Soleimani’s 2020 killing. In a related development, Merchant told FBI agents he suspected Iran was behind the July 13, 2024, Butler assassination attempt on Trump. He claimed it mirrored his own scheme, orchestrated under IRGC coercion with threats to his family. Prosecutors allege Merchant recruited hitmen targeting U.S. politicians, including Trump, Biden, and Haley. During his trial, he handed $5,000 to undercover agents. U.S. strikes have since killed the IRGC leader behind the plot, as announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth described Tuesday as the “most intense day” of attacks on Iran, with refined intelligence leading to more strikes. Iran has fired fewer missiles in recent hours, he noted. Iran’s IRGC announced that countries expelling U.S. and Israeli ambassadors would gain passage through the Strait of Hormuz, amid warnings from Saudi Arabia’s oil company of market “catastrophe” due to disruptions.] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel is “not done yet” in Iran, while warning Lebanese residents ahead of strikes on Hezbollah. French President Emmanuel Macron assured Cyprus of support amid regional strains.

Tehran saw massive airstrikes with “unusually large” explosions, as Trump vowed to end the war “very soon” but indicated further actions. Smoke billowed over the capital, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ruled out resuming U.S. negotiations, citing past betrayals. Mojtaba Khamenei, wounded in the conflict and dubbed “vengeful” by some, has ties to the IRGC and is seen as more extremist. Protests in Iran include chants of “death to Mojtaba,” while state media rallies support.

Trump reiterated warnings on Truth Social, promising to hit Iran “twenty times harder” if oil flow is blocked. Iran insists it will determine the war’s end and continue missile attacks as needed. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, halting oil tankers and filling storage, spiking global prices and raising economic crisis fears. These intercepts and threats underscore the precarious security landscape, with potential implications for U.S. safety and international stability as the conflict persists.

Read more …

I may not agree all the time, but I highly appreciate the view of a soon 87-year old former (assistant) cabinet secretary.

• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked at a news conference on March 9 if in view of the lack of success of the Israeli-American missile and air strikes to defeat Iran, now that Trump was talking about boots on the ground could America look forward to a draft? Leavitt’s answer was that the President keeps all options on the table.I don’t think that this is going to go down well with American mothers and fathers. Yes, they are brainwashed about “Israel’s right to defend itself,” and “you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel,” but that was before their sons faced conscription to go to war and to die for Israel.


So far we have only had propaganda, not factual news, about the success for lack thereof of the Israeli-American attack on Iran. But all the indications are that the war has not gone as Trump expected. My own opinion at this time is that the only way Trump can avoid defeat in Iran is to nuke Iran, which I am convinced was Netanyahu’s intent from the beginning. Netanyahu will be telling Trump, “You promised victory. You cannot accept a defeat.”

The Republicans who support the war, ranging from 76% to 85% depending on the poll are too stupid and insouciant to comprehend that they are supporting a war likely to end in nuclear war and their own demise. Patriots are the easiest to deceive, because they wrap themselves in the flag. But a deceived population is a poor basis for survival. Has Netanyahu maneuvered an utterly stupid American president into a draft in a midterm election year?

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Not both.

• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)

President Trump recently declared that he has won the war ahead of schedule. But evidence supports the opposite conclusion. For example, Washington is having to remove sanctions on Russian oil in order to release Russian oil to the market in a weak effort to compensate for Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz. So much for Trump’s “victory.” Washington has already been forced to waive its ban on refiners in India from purchasing Russian oil. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said: “We may unsanction other Russian oil . . . There are hundreds of millions of barrels of sanctioned crude on the water … by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply.” One might have thought that the dumbshit Trump regime would have thought of this prior to taking the world to war.


Here we will get a test of Putin’s mettle. Will he sell out his BRICS Iranian ally in exchange for Washington removing its Russian sanctions? Will Putin think he can parlay his cooperation with Israel-America for a mutual defense treaty? Such treachery would be isolating and would cost Russia China’s trust, leaving both countries isolated for Washington to try to destabilize. As Putin has already walked away from Syria and refuses to win the conflict with Ukraine, will he also sell out Iran for hopes that have no chance of being realized? Just how unrealistic is Putin? Can Russia survive Putin’s unrealism?

Until Washington renounces the Wolfowitz Doctrine of US hegemony and Israel renounces the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel, no agreement with Washington means anything other than the stupidity of the Russian or Chinese or Iranian government in giving Washington and Israel time to regroup, resupply, and renew the attack.

On Dialogue Works I discuss with Nima the basic fact that the operative foreign policies are Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel and Washington’s agenda of American hegemony. https://www.youtube.com/live/OEplHZWNG-E Israel’s agenda means that Iran’s only option is to fight for survival. Iran cannot negotiate its survival. The Wolfowitz Doctrine means that China and Russia’s only choice is to prevail over Washington or accept subservience to Washington. It is impossible to negotiate equality with a government, the agenda of which is its hegemony. It is extraordinary that governments, commentators, and media cannot comprehend such obvious facts.

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I kid you not: Their political rivals say the AfD is actively seeking to overthrow the German constitution. Like the Schiffs and Pelosi’s said about Trump.

• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)

To the despair of the European establishment, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the most hated political force in Germany, keeps showing robust signs of life, whether in its impressive showing in a state election on Sunday or in a recent courtroom victory. On Sunday, the AfD more than doubled its previous vote share for the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, a key industrial state in western Germany. On February 26, a German court enjoined the country’s domestic spy agency from classifying Germany’s second most popular political party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization. The “confirmed right-wing extremist” designation has been a key tool in the campaign among establishment and left-wing politicians to ban the AfD entirely. The AfD’s fate should not be a matter of indifference to American conservatives. The globalist elites must be broken everywhere if they are to be permanently broken at all.


Growing numbers of the German public defy their overseers and welcome the AfD as an antidote to the EU-Davos philosophy of open borders and the deindustrialization and immiseration that go under the banner of climate-friendly energy policy. The AfD polls second nationally to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU was once the cornerstone of postwar conservatism, but its leaders have pulled it to the left in order to marginalize the AfD. In February 2025, Chancellor (and CDU party head) Friedrich Merz cobbled together an ideologically incoherent governing coalition whose sole purpose is to shut the AfD out of power, despite the AfD’s receiving the second largest share of the German vote. The establishment proudly refers to this exclusionary strategy as the “firewall,” which allegedly protects German democracy from falling into the hands of purported neo-Nazis.

Despite the relentless agitation against it, the AfD is the leading political force in many East German states. It is rising fast in the West, including in several states, such as Baden-Württemberg, holding elections this year for their local parliaments. That’s where the government-imposed “right-wing extremist” label comes in. If one wants to see the Deep State in its most perfected form, Germany is the place to look.

The country’s domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has vast discretion to wiretap German citizens and to determine their political legitimacy. It assesses whether a political movement is an enemy of the “free democratic basic order” and “inimical to the Constitution.” Depending on how confident the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is regarding the anti-democratic character of a party, it classifies that party as “a suspicious case,” a “suspected extremist” party, or a “confirmed extremist” party. These categories govern how much surveillance the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is allowed to conduct on party members—a startling amount by non-German standards, yet now almost shrugged off by its nationalist targets as an unavoidable condition of political existence.

Previously, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had classified the AfD as a “suspected” right-wing extremist organization. But in 2025, the office bumped up the classification to “confirmed extremist” on the basis of a secret 7,000-page dossier of materials, collected from public sources and from years of wiretaps on party members’ phones. That “confirmed extremist” designation meant that the office was now certain that the AfD was actively seeking to overthrow the constitution. The reclassification was clearly the result of prodding from the previous minister of the interior, Nancy Faeser, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The intention was to accelerate the movement to ban the AfD altogether.

So what makes the AfD so dangerous to German democracy? Has it called for suspending elections? For storming the Bundestag (parliament)? For jailing, banning, or censoring its political opponents? For preventing those opponents from participating in the parliamentary debate? For shuttering the internet to contrary opinion? Has it used violence against its enemies? Is it antisemitic? No, it is the AfD’s enemies who seek to ban and censor it, who deny it its parliamentary privileges, who have launched arson attacks against its leaders, and who have assaulted its members. The AfD has done none of these things to its opponents, nor has it called for doing so. It has abided by every legal ruling against it, however tendentious. The AfD is Germany’s staunchest supporter of Israel and German Jews; it alone has tried for years to cut off the U.N. slush fund that supports Palestinian terrorism.

Its representatives are the target of shunning that would make a teenage girl blush. If an AfD member enters a crowded elevator in the modernist Bundestag, he may suddenly find himself alone, as his fellow legislators flee from possible contamination. So what makes the AfD so toxic?

Its cardinal sin is to argue that mass third-world migration is destroying traditional German culture and identity. It is to point out that Germany’s open-borders policies are saddling the country with a crime- and terror-prone, welfare-dependent, culturally alien population that consumes taxpayer resources while only intermittently giving something back to German society. Its crime against democracy is in calling for the enforcement of laws already on the books regarding the deportation of criminal aliens and other migrants who have no right to remain in German society. At its core, its heresy is to assert that a country has a right to decide its level of immigration and resulting culture change, rather than that level being determined by the will of the migrants themselves.

These AfD positions do not threaten due process, popular sovereignty, or other democratic values. If the AfD is nonetheless antithetical to democracy, as we are told, then democracy at present means above all else a commitment to maximum demographic replacement. Speak out against unchecked immigration from the Third World, and you will be branded not just as a racist and xenophobe but as a threat to democracy itself, since democracy is now defined as the embrace of policies that erode national identity. (Such erosion is sought only in Western countries, however.)

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“..EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies..”

• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)

The origin of this issue goes back to 2021 and the relaunch of the Build Back Better European green energy program to fight the non-existent climate change problem. We have been highlighting the consequences within the EU auto sector. We noted in October of last year, the EU’s mandated fines against auto manufacturers who do not hit their production goals for electric vehicle sales began in 2025. EU automakers unable to meet the regulatory compliance goal began purchasing carbon credits to avoid stiff EU fines. Many of those carbon credits were purchased from Chinese EV automakers, who then turned around and started using the extra EU revenue to discount Chinese cars sold in Europe.


At the same time as Chinese autos hit record highs in Europe, EU car sales are flat or declining. Now, Volkswagen is announcing they lost half their profits in one year and will be cutting 50,000 jobs in the next four years. (MSM – Europe) – Volkswagen just revealed its operating profit sank like a stone last year, dropping by more than half as tariffs, Chinese competition, and shifting strategies took a serious bite out of the bottom line. And that performance now has the VW Group’s execs reaching for the cost-cutting scissors, including plans to shed 50,000 jobs by the end of the decade.The German automaker reported an operating profit of €8.9 billion ($10.3 bn at current rates) for 2025. That’s down a hefty 53 percent from the year before and well below what analysts were expecting. Revenue, meanwhile, barely moved, slipping only slightly to around €322 billion ($374 bn). (read more)

This was very predictable. In essence, EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies. The EU tariff applied to gasoline powered cars or hybrids from China is 10%. That tariff is not enough to stop the imports. The Chinese hybrid autos are substantially less than European car brands, and there’s no financial incentive for China to build auto plants in the EU zone especially when you consider the EU is subsidizing those cars by purchasing carbon credits.

When analyzed from a cost and consequence, the entire EU dynamic toward car companies is a little funny. However, for Germany this is a serious issue, and with the German industrial economy already stagnant – every impact to their auto industry only makes the situation worse. When you overlay the big picture of their expensive “green energy” costs, the EU find themselves in an unescapable downward spiral. Quite literally, all commonsense seems to have been lost in their green energy chase. By focusing on energy targets, specifically by trying to force production of European electric vehicles that are not favored by European car purchasers, the EU is shrinking their economy to the benefit of Beijing exploitation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently travelled to China for a discussion with Chairman Xi Jinping. Chancellor Merz returned to German with a stark message about how the nation needed to quickly get productive in order to meet the far superior work ethic he saw in China. At the same time, the EU has destroyed its energy sector by chasing windmills and solar farms instead of maintaining the much cheaper coal and gas alternatives. Overall, Europe has made a series of really bad decisions, but those consequences will surface the hardest within the largest industrial economy, Germany. They’ve got major problems now.

Read more …

“Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon..”

• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)

The top Justice Department prosecutor for civil liberties and voting rights tells Just the News that her ongoing review of state voter rolls has proven tens of thousands of noncitizens made it into a position to cast ballots and that hundreds of thousands of dead or departed residents were not properly removed from state election systems. “It’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said Tuesday night, criticizing state election offices and federal judges who are blocking her office from her historic effort to obtain and review every state’s voter roll ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.


Dhillon gave an early accounting of the initiative, disclosing during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show that 16 states have turned over their voter rolls to DOJ or signed memorandum of understanding to provide the data while 29 are facing litigation to compel them to turn over the lists. “We want every American citizen to feel confident in voting and feel confident in the outcome of that election, and that is why we’re undertaking this massive project,” she explained. While having access to less than half the state’s election databases, Dhillon said she has already found deeply disturbing statistics that are only bound to get worse as more states are forced to comply.

“We’re finding tens of thousands of noncitizens on the voter rolls, hundreds of thousands of dead people on the voter rolls, and duplicate registrations between states,” she said. Earlier this month, DOJ announced it had indicted an illegal alien from Africa for illegally voting in seven federal elections in Pennsylvania. Federal law prohibits foreigners from voting in federal elections.Mahady Sacko, who came to the United States illegally from Mauritania, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the FBI in Philadelphia. He has been charged with voter fraud, officials said. “This criminal illegal alien committed a felony by voting in federal elections dating back to 2008. Illegal aliens should NOT be electing American leaders,” Deputy Assistant Homeland Secretary Lauren Bis said. “Our elections belong to American citizens, not foreign citizens. Congress must pass the SAVE America Act immediately to secure our elections.”

Dhillon revealed there are dozens more noncitizens who DOJ has confirmed voted illegally, but those cases have not yet been prosecuted because the U.S. Senate has not confirmed U.S. attorneys in many jurisdictions. “For every person that we’ve seen a story about, I know of dozens and dozens more cases, and U.S. attorney’s offices are wanting to bring these cases, but we have, of course, interference with the very appointment of these U.S. attorneys at the political level,” she explained. “So that’s above my pay grade, but it’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job.

Dhillon said there are two reasons why states aren’t turning over voter rolls: some simply don’t want the DOJ to review their work and others are afraid of being sued by Democrat voting rights lawyers like Marc Elias or future Democratic presidential administrations. “You may ask, why don’t states clean it up themselves? Well, sometimes it’s just inefficiency, but more times it’s actually states wanting to clean up their voter rolls, and the Marc Elias’s of the world and even the DOJ (under Biden) are suing them to stop them from cleaning up their own voter rolls,” she said.

Read more …

I don’t care much for Epstein’s accountant. But this sentence stuck out. I had to read it twice and still have questions:

“Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.”

Does that state that Epstein abused US citizens who after that fact sham-married foreign-born victims -of Epstein?!

• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)

An accountant for late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a closed-door deposition. Richard Kahn was Epstein’s accountant for more than 10 years and became an executor of his estate after his death, CBS News reported. Kahn was one of Epstein’s closest associates in his final years, as he managed the financier’s investments, finances and other matters, such as renovations on his private island. Another executor of Epstein’s estate, lawyer Darren Indyke, is expected to testify before the committee on March 19.


According to documents from lawsuits and the Justice Department’s Epstein files, Epstein, Kahn, and Indyke together operated a sophisticated and tangled web of businesses. The release of the files has shed more light on Epstein’s association with some of the world’s most powerful men, some of whom continued to associate with him after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. After the House committee issued subpoenas to Kahn and Indyke in January, Daniel H. Weiner, an attorney for both men, said that allegations against them are “false.”

“It is worth emphasizing that not a single woman has ever accused either Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse,” Weiner said. “Indyke and Kahn did not socialize with Mr. Epstein, and they have always rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein’s actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr. Epstein.” Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.

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“Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable..”

• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)

Microsoft on March 10 filed an amicus brief backing Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Department of War, seeking a court order to temporarily stop the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. Anthropic filed the suit on March 9 after the Pentagon designated it a supply chain risk to national security, a label that would hinder the Pentagon and its contractors from using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology in their work for the U.S. military. The designation stemmed from Anthropic’s rejection of the Pentagon’s request for unrestricted access to its Claude models over concerns that the technology could be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has denied that it planned to use Claude for such purposes.


In its amicus brief filed March 10, Microsoft said it was directly affected by the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic because it uses Anthropic’s technologies in products made available to the Pentagon. The tech giant said that a temporary block on the designation would “enable a more orderly transition and avoid disrupting the American military’s ongoing use of advanced AI.” Microsoft warned that U.S. warfighters could be hampered “at a critical point in time” if companies are required to immediately alter existing product and contract configurations used by the Pentagon. It also warned that putting the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic into immediate effect will have “broad negative ramifications for the entire technology sector and the American business community.”

Microsoft said the Pentagon gave itself a six-month period to transition services away from Anthropic’s technologies but did not provide the same transition timeline for contractors that use Anthropic products. “Should this action proceed without the entry of a temporary restraining order, Microsoft and other government contractors with expertise in developing solutions to support U.S. government missions will be forced to account for a new risk in their business planning,” it stated. “Should companies choose to forgo the opportunity to work with the U.S. government due to the attendant risks, the U.S. government, its missions, and the people it serves would lose access to state-of-the-art technological solutions,” Microsoft said.

[..] Anthropic alleged in its lawsuit that the federal government designated the company in retaliation for its viewpoint protected under the First Amendment. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Feb. 27 accused Anthropic of trying to dictate military operations by denying the Pentagon permission to use its Claude models for all lawful purposes. “Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable,” Hegseth said in a post on X. The Pentagon used the Claude AI system for mission-critical functions, including intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, and cyber operations.

Read more …

We don’t even agree what is a ‘bad bot’.

• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)

The share of global web traffic generated by humans is shrinking, while bot activity is on the rise. According to Imperva Bad Bot Reports, in 2018, humans still accounted for 62 percent of web traffic, with malicious bots at 20 percent and benign bots at 18 percent. But over the past seven years, the balance of web traffic has shifted dramatically. As Statista’s Tristan Gaudiat shows in the chart below, humans now represent less than half of all traffic (49 percent in 2024), while malicious bots have surged to 37 percent, accounting for well over twice the traffic of benign bots (14 percent).


This rise in malicious bot activity reflects a growing cybersecurity challenge. Bad bots are often used to steal login details, collect sensitive data, spread misinformation and manipulate online ads. Industries like e commerce, finance and social media are particularly affected. Bot fraud is estimated to cost businesses billions each year. Yet, not all bots are harmful. Benign bots, such as search engine crawlers and chatbots, play a crucial role in indexing the web and improving user experiences. However, their declining share suggests that cybercriminals are outpacing legitimate automation. As AI and machine learning make bots more sophisticated, their growing share of web traffic is likely to remain a defining trend in the years ahead.

Read more …

Corruption ”R’ Us

• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)

Ukraine has failed to explain why an armored convoy carrying tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold, and supervised by people with ties to Ukrainian intelligence, was transiting through Hungary, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. He also implied that the funds may be a sign of Ukrainian plans to meddle in Hungary’s upcoming elections. Tensions between the two countries escalated last week when Hungarian officials impounded two trucks belonging to Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank near Budapest, seizing $40 million and €35 million in cash and 9 kg of gold as part of a money laundering investigation. The funds were being transported from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank to Ukraine.


Hungary said the convoy was being supervised by a former general of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), with other escorts also reportedly having military backgrounds. All seven escorts were deported back to Ukraine, while the assets and the trucks remain in custody. Ukraine, meanwhile, has denounced the seizure as “state banditism” and “blackmail.” Speaking on Tuesday, Szijjarto – who previously suggested that the convoy could be linked to a Ukrainian “war mafia” – rebuked Kiev over what he described as a failure to answer basic questions about the convoy and previous transfers of the same kind. “I think the last time such a transfer happened was in the Stone Age, when two banks settled €1.1-1.2 billion in cash between each other,” Szijjarto said.

The minister further questioned the convoy’s route, pointing out it had bypassed Poland – a NATO member with relatively good relations with Kiev – in favor of Hungarian roads. “So what is this money doing here? And what are the Ukrainian secret service people and people with military connections doing among the escorts?” he said. He also described it as “very suspicious” that the detained Ukrainians were being represented in Hungary by a law firm linked to the Tisza opposition party. Szijjarto suggested that the cash could be tied to alleged Ukrainian efforts to influence Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections. “The Ukrainians have an interest in a certain election outcome, and 500 billion forints are again floating around in Hungary. How strong the connection between the two is – that is what needs to be found out now.”

Read more …

“A €90 billion loan plan is currently being blocked by Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine’s refusal to allow them access to Russian oil ..”

• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico

Cash-strapped Ukraine could receive as much as €30 billion ($35 billion) from individual EU members, Politico reported on Wednesday. The idea is being discussed as Hungary and Slovakia pressure Kiev to resume Russian oil supplies by blocking a joint €90 billion EU loan. Kiev claims supplies through the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline are suspended due to damage from a Russian attack, with repairs not expected until late April – after key elections in Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Ukraine of orchestrating an energy crisis to boost the opposition.The freeze on the joint EU loan was part of Orban’s retaliation for the alleged Ukrainian plot. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said his government would block the money even if Orban’s party loses at the ballot box next month.


Baltic and Nordic nations are considering bilateral loans to Ukraine totaling €30 billion to avert bankruptcy, Politico said, citing anonymous sources. Separately, Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen reportedly told fellow EU ministers that the Netherlands intends to provide Ukraine with €3.5 billion annually through 2029. In late February, the International Monetary Fund approved an $8.1 billion loan to Ukraine, with $1.5 billion disbursed immediately to ease Kiev’s budgetary strain. The IMF agreed to postpone demands for financial reforms that the Ukrainian government declined to implement.

Supporters of Ukraine in the EU have proposed a similar scheme for its accession bid. Under the “reverse enlargement” idea, Ukraine would be formally admitted without meeting candidate criteria, enjoying limited privileges and obligations. The proposal has faced strong opposition from member states insisting that EU expansion must remain merit-based.The EU is also under additional economic pressure from the US-Israeli campaign to topple Iran’s government through military force. The Middle East conflict has disrupted oil and LNG supplies, and the resulting price shock poses heightened risks to European consumers, given the EU’s politically motivated rejection of Russian energy.

Read more …

Zelensky and the cabal all around him.

• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have a little something for the ladies for Women’s History Month. They’re apparently going to spend the entire time beaking each other off on the global stage. Get your wads of bills ready to toss, girls! Especially you, Queen Ursula. Let’s peek in, shall we? Orban says he’s already on the verge of pulling out his tool. Guess we missed the part where they play footsie under the table first. “We have no military force for this, I can reassure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” the Hungarian PM said, in demanding that Zelensky open the tap on the Druzhba pipeline of Russian oil to Hungary that represents the landlocked country’s critical supply.


Orban has said he has no interest in taking his foot off the firehose of cash that the EU has been blasting out on itself and whatever else it has going on in the land of golden toilets amid the fog of war – all under the pretext of helping Ukraine, of course.“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block 90 billion or the first tranche of 90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons” Zelensky said. “Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our lads. Let them call him and talk to him in their own language.”

Who could that “one person” possibly be? In any case, guess he’ll either be getting an email, or maybe a visit, depending on what the word “address” actually means here. Or maybe just a phone call with a bunch of guys breathing heavily down the line in a foreign language. Hard to tell. Zelensky, an actor, could probably use a better scriptwriter for his Godfather-style lines. Or maybe just drop a dead rat in the mail next time and skip the public speculation. The EU brass has told these two lovebirds to pipe down. But it really isn’t in Zelensky’s interest to do that. And Brussels seems to be making sure of it. If only because emerging info suggests that Zelensky is on the verge of ensuring that he gets rewarded for playing hard to get.

There are two possibilities shaping up. Either Orban feels enough pressure to drop his veto of the EU’s latest €90 million spending package in order to get the gas flowing during this heated Hungarian election period. An unlikely scenario given that his more pro-EU opponent in the April 12 national vote has left very little daylight between him and Orban on the issue of the need for Zelensky to restart the pipeline. Or, alternatively, Orban can double down and maintain his insistence, leaving Brussels with a new convenient pretext, since it’s being reported by Bloomberg that Brussels is considering the possibility of basically bribing Zelensky with EU money to “fix” the pipeline.

What’s that repair going to cost? Oh, let me guess – €90 billion, perhaps? And are European defense contractors also going to be involved in these “repairs”? Will they require golden toilets in the outhouses on-site? In which case, it’s not hard to see that it could end up serving as the ultimate workaround for much of same spending that’s being blocked by Orban – just rebranded as something that he couldn’t possibly pass up. What’s he going to do – block funding to Ukraine earmarked as “aid” meant to ensure that his Druzhba demands to get the oil flowing to Hungary are met?

No one seems to care too much anymore about whether the repair issue itself is even legitimate. Orban had proposed a fact-finding mission. Zelensky was like, bro, you don’t hear me asking to go peek into your closet to see if you have any weapons for me when you say that you don’t. Not the best analogy.

A better one would be to compare Ukraine to the local charity that asks whether you have old clothes to donate – and then insists on rummaging through your drawers to make sure that you’re not holding out. And Hungary’s request of Kiev is like ordering a pizza (from Russia, in this case), paying for it, watching the delivery guy arrive – and then the building’s security guard, let’s call him Vladimir Z., stands in the lobby eating slices and saying, “Sorry man, delivery seems to be delayed. Nothing I can do.” Or paying for express shipping and the mailman just keeps your package in his truck while telling you, “Yeah the postal system is slow these days. Really unfortunate.” .”

Read more …

“The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country With No Hope of Ever Being United Again”

• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

I am addicted to the internet. I freely admit it. As a news junkie, I am as well-informed as anyone in the country. I know a lot about a few things; I know something about a lot of things; and I know nothing about many things. I spend 10-14 hours a day online, reading, writing, researching, and thinking. While it’s my job, I would spend the time online anyway just because I can’t stand not knowing.And I’m trapped. The life I’m living is not “real” in the sense that most of the 320 million Americans live the same kind of life. Are they as angry as many of us? Do they fear for the future of the U.S. as much as most of us? Are they habitually offended by everything I write?


When I refer to “us,” I mean PJ Media readers and the online right and left: the politically aware, perpetually outraged, eternally wounded, aggrieved, displeased, and helplessly partisan among us who enjoy being outraged, get a rush from catching a political opponent in hypocrisy, and laugh at an enemy’s misfortune. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, co-founders of Axios, have a piece in that publication that we should all read to remind us that the “online political community” to which we ostensibly belong is only a tiny part of America. The “super majority” of Americans are “patriotic, hardworking, neighbor-helping, America-loving, money-giving people who don’t pop off on social media or plot for power.”

And the real shocker: “Most people agree on most things, most of the time. And the data validates this, time and time again,” they write. Axios: We’ve been manipulated by algorithms and politicians amplifying the worst of humanity. Our feeds and screens spread a twisted, inaccurate view of America.It makes it seem like the nation is hopelessly broken … Political enemies are evil … Facts are no different than fiction … Morality, honesty and service don’t matter … And salvation can only come from magical technologies or a powerful few.

What if we told you it’s a big lie that makes you stop believing your own two eyes? Every day, people battle over outrageous things said on X. Did you know that four out of five Americans don’t use X, and therefore don’t see what you see? Pew Research Center found last year that only 21% of U.S. adults use X, and just 10% visit it daily. The loudest platform in politics reaches barely one in five Americans. “Maybe, just maybe, it’s the very people on these platforms who are the crazy ones,” they write. “Maybe, just maybe, most people are simply normal, sane, real.”

We know this to be true. If we talk to our neighbors, co-workers, or members of our congregations, we know what they’re concerned about: family, work, bills, and everything else that goes into creating a normal life. They don’t give a crap about what AOC just said, Trump’s latest putdown, a Democrat calling us fascists, or a Republican calling Democrats communists.The overwhelming majority of the nation just doesn’t care. In a given year, you see hundreds of people frequently enough to appraise their character. Are they good people? Would they help shovel after a snowstorm or lift groceries for an aging neighbor? Do they volunteer and give to others? We bet the answer is a resounding yes. This is America’s Super Majority.

The numbers back this up. Americans gave $592.5 billion to charity in 2024 — a record, with individuals accounting for two-thirds of it.Over 75 million Americans formally volunteer each year, and 130 million informally help their neighbors. Gallup research out last month found that 76% of U.S. adults gave money to a religious or other nonprofit organization in the past year, and 63% volunteered their time. This isn’t a broken nation. This is a generous one, where the vast majority quietly do the right thing every single day. This is from two hard-headed, respected journalists who have been writing about politics for most of their lives, not a couple of starry-eyed kids. They’ve hit on something important that we should all try to keep in mind.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2031514430588989542?s=20 I looked at it and I’m out for now, because I’m not in the US. https://twitter.com/BinsaeedRashid/status/2031373783424975177?s=20 https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/2031459370454659517?s=20 https://twitter.com/XCorpHub/status/2031460080265433303?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 27 2022

Dec 272022
 
 December 27, 2022  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


L.S. Lowry The mill, Pendlebury 1943

 

• The Twitter Files: How Twitter Rigged The Covid Debate (Zweig)
• How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate (ZH)
• You Need to Start Paying Attention to the ‘Twitter Files’ (PJM)
• It’s Time to Reform the Bureau (Turley)
• What Will the FBI *Not* Do? (Hanson)
• Pandemic Response Gets A Permanent New Home At The White House (STAT)
• Ukraine Calls For UN-Brokered ‘Peace Summit’ In February (RT)
• Report: The CIA Is Directing Sabotage Attacks Inside Russia (Antiwar)
• Medvedev Gives Timeline For Reconciliation With The West (RT)
• What Can Happen In 2023 (Dmitry Medvedev)
• ECB Governing Council Says Growth Of Key Rate In 2023 Possible (Az.)
• Russia Ready To Resume Gas Supplies To EU – Official (RT)
• Germany Becoming ‘Dysfunctional’ State – MP (RT)
• Return Europe To A Union Of Homelands (RMX)
• Republican Senators Turn On Leader Mitch McConnell Over $1.7t Omnibus (DM)
• What It’s Really About (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Blood-brain barrier

 

 

 

 

Tom Renz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1607224317099798530

 

 

 

 

Mozart

 

 

 

 

More Twitter files, this time on Covid response.

Elon Musk @elonmusk: “Much more to The Twitter Files: Covid Editon than this introductory thread. Follow-up piece to come next week, featuring leading doctors & researchers from Harvard, Stanford & other institutions. (Many of whom were, of course, actively suppressed on Twitter).”

Author David Zweig also has a longer article here . I’ll start off with his Twitter thread.

• The Twitter Files: How Twitter Rigged The Covid Debate (Zweig)

– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
2. So far the Twitter Files have focused on evidence of Twitter’s secret blacklists; how the company functioned as a kind of subsidiary of the FBI; and how execs rewrote the platform’s rules to accommodate their own political desires.
3. What we have yet to cover is Covid. This reporting, for The Free Press, @thefp, is one piece of that important story.
4. The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19.
5. Internal files at Twitter that I viewed while on assignment for @thefp showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes.
6. At the onset of the pandemic, according to meeting notes, the Trump admin was especially concerned about panic buying. They came looking for “help from the tech companies to combat misinformation” about “runs on grocery stores.” But . . . there were runs on grocery stores.
7. It wasn’t just Twitter. The meetings with the Trump White House were also attended by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others.
8. When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson.
9. In the summer of 2021, president Biden said social media companies were “killing people” for allowing vaccine misinformation. Berenson was suspended hours after Biden’s comments, and kicked off the platform the following month.
10. Berenson sued (and then settled with) Twitter. In the legal process Twitter was compelled to release certain internal communications, which showed direct White House pressure on the company to take action on Berenson.

Read more …

“We are asking them to step up,” Murthy said. “We can’t wait longer for them to take aggressive action.”

• How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate (ZH)

Today’s edition, dropped by journalist David Zweig, focuses on ‘how Twitter rigged the Covid debate’ by taking direction from both the Trump and Biden administrations (while at the same time trying to censor the former president). What’s somewhat notable is how aggressive government (and ex-government) officials were in trying to stifle free speech, while Twitter’s non-government-linked employees would often push back (and then totally fold) – a theme we’ve observed in previous drops. In one such instance, former head of Twitter’s Trust & Safety team Yoel Roth tells former FBI lawyer and then-Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker to calm his tits over a Trump tweet. Of course, in the end the government typically got its way, as you will read below.

Zweig, who was granted access to internal files while on assignment for The Free Press, notes that “both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes.” What’s more, the censorship effort extended to Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others. In July 2021, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a 22-page advisory concerning what the World Health Organization referred to as an “infodemic,” and called on social media platforms to do more to shut down “misformation.” “We are asking them to step up,” Murthy said. “We can’t wait longer for them to take aggressive action.”

That’s the message the White House had already taken directly to Twitter executives in private channels. One of the Biden administration’s first meeting requests was about Covid, with a focus on “anti-vaxxer accounts,” according to a meeting summary by Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s Head of U.S. Public Policy. They were especially concerned about Alex Berenson, a journalist skeptical of lockdowns and mRNA vaccines, who had hundreds of thousands of followers on the platform: By the summer of 2021, the day after Murthy’s memo, Biden announced publicly that social media companies were “killing people” by allowing misinformation about vaccines. Just hours later, Twitter locked Berenson out of his account, and then permanently suspended him the next month.

Berenson sued Twitter. He ultimately settled with the company, and is now back on the platform. As part of the lawsuit, Twitter was compelled to provide certain internal communications. They revealed that the White House had directly met with Twitter employees and pressured them to take action on Berenson. The summary of meetings by Culbertson, emailed to colleagues in December 2022, adds new evidence of the White House’s pressure campaign, and illustrates how it tried to directly influence what content was allowed on Twitter. Culbertson wrote that the Biden team was “very angry” that Twitter had not been more aggressive in deplatforming multiple accounts. They wanted Twitter to do more.

Read more …

Yeah, we could use some summaries. Authors so far: Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, Lee Fang, David Zweig, Leighton Woodhouse, Abigail Shrier. And perhaps others?! I hadn’t even noticed the last two.

• You Need to Start Paying Attention to the ‘Twitter Files’ (PJM)

The “Twitter Files” have now officially had more sequels than Planet of the Apes and can be difficult to absorb. Thus, I don’t think they’re getting the attention they deserve. For those of you not following the “Twitter Files” drops, let me catch you up on what I believe are some of the most important parts:
• The FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million to censor conservatives.
• The FBI pressured Twitter to give them information that would legally require warrants, though they did not have warrants.
• Leading up to the 2020 election, the FBI would eventually hold weekly meetings with Twitter and tell them whose tweets to squelch and which accounts they wanted to be suspended. Almost all were those of conservatives.
• The FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop story was real, they knew it was coming out — weeks before the 2020 election — and they told Big Tech to expect a “Russian disinformation” drop and squelch the story. That means the FBI corrupted the election to help Joe “totally showered with his daughter, Ashley” Biden.
• There are so many former FBI employees at Twitter that they have their own Slack channel.


In response to the “Twitter Files” detailing how the FBI-Twitter circle jerk was real, the bureau called the allegations “conspiracy theories” but never actually denied its relationship with Twitter. Elon Musk provided the world with an early Christmas present on Saturday with Twitter Files Pt. IX. I’ll sum it up so you can avoid the Twitter mess and get to the relevant facts:
• The FBI was a portal, specifically the San Francisco office, for other government agencies to get to Twitter to surveil and censor Americans.
• Hiding under the title of Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), actors from local police departments to the Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA were watching and censoring Americans — not foreigners.
• Twitter wasn’t the only Big Tech firm hip-deep in spooks. The feds had their fingers in Verizon, Reddit, Facebook, Microsoft, and, for some reason, Pinterest.
• As the 2020 election neared, the FBI-FITF assailed Twitter with hundreds of requests to censor Twitter accounts and tweets. There were so many requests that Twitter execs had to come up with a system to prioritize them.
• FBI employees were tasked with doing word searches on Twitter, looking for violations of Twitter policies — instead of chasing actual criminals.
• The FBI had roughly 80 agents working with Big Tech companies. It is unclear how many members of the DOD, CIA, etc. were involved

Read more …

“Criticizing the FBI is now ‘disinformation’”

• It’s Time to Reform the Bureau (Turley)

The “Twitter Files” released by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, show as many as 80 agents targeting social-media posters for censorship on the site. This included alleged briefings that Twitter officials said was the reason they spiked the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election. The FBI sent 150 messages on back channels to just one Twitter official to flag accounts. One Twitter executive expressed unease over the FBI’s pressure, declaring: “They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).” We also have learned that Twitter hired a number of retired FBI agents, including former FBI general counsel James Baker, who was a critical and controversial figure in past bureau scandals over political bias.

It is not clear what is more chilling — the menacing role played by the FBI in Twitter’s censorship program, or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role. The FBI has issued a series of “nothing-to-see-here” statements regarding the Twitter Files. In its latest statement, the FBI insists it did not command Twitter to take any specific action when flagging accounts to be censored. Of course, it didn’t have to threaten the company — because we now have an effective state media by consent rather than coercion. Moreover, an FBI warning tends to concentrate the minds of most people without the need for a specific threat. Finally, the files show that the FBI paid Twitter millions as part of this censorship system — a windfall favorably reported to Baker before he was fired from Twitter by Musk.

Criticizing the FBI is now ‘disinformation’. Responding to the disclosures and criticism, an FBI spokesperson declared: “The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.” Arguably, “working every day to protect the American public” need not include censoring the public to protect it from errant or misleading ideas. However, it is the attack on its critics that is most striking. While the FBI denounced critics of an earlier era as communists and “fellow travelers,” it now uses the same attack narrative to label its critics as “conspiracy theorists.”

After Watergate, there was bipartisan support for reforming the FBI and intelligence agencies. Today, that cacophony of voices has been replaced by crickets, as much of the media imposes another effective blackout on coverage of the Twitter Files. This media silence suggests that the FBI found the “sweet spot” on censorship, supporting the views of the political and media establishment. As for the rest of us, the FBI now declares us to be part of a disinformation danger which it is committed to stamping out — “conspiracy theorists” misleading the public simply by criticizing the bureau. Clearly, this is the time for a new Church Committee — and time to reform the FBI.

Read more …

“Consider the last four directors, the public faces of the FBI for the last 22 years.”

• What Will the FBI *Not* Do? (Hanson)

The FBI is now, tragically, in freefall. The public is at the point, first, of asking what improper or illegal behavior will the bureau not pursue, and what, if anything, must be done to reform or save a once great but now discredited agency. Consider the last four directors, the public faces of the FBI for the last 22 years. Ex-director Robert Mueller testified before Congress that he simply would not or could not talk about the fraudulent Steele dossier. He claimed that it was not the catalyst for his special counsel investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged ties with the Russians when, of course, it was. Mueller also testified that he was “not familiar” with Fusion GPS, although Glenn Simpson’s opposition research firm subsidized the dossier through various cutouts that led back to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. And the skullduggery in the FBI-subsidized dossier helped force the appointment of Mueller himself.

While under congressional oath, Mueller’s successor James Comey on some 245 occasions claimed that he “could not remember,” “could not recall,” or “did not know” when asked simple questions fundamental to his own involvement with the Russian collusion hoax. Comey, remember, memorialized a confidential conversation with President Trump on an FBI device and then used a third party to leak it to the New York Times. In his own words, the purpose was to force a special counsel appointment. The gambit worked, and his friend and predecessor Robert Mueller got the job. Twenty months and $40 million later, Mueller’s investigation tore the country apart but could find no evidence that Trump, as Steele alleged, colluded with the Russians to throw the 2016 election.

Comey also seems to have reassured the president that he was not the target of an ongoing FBI investigation, when in fact, Trump was. Comey was never indicted for either misleading or lying to a congressional committee or leaking a document variously considered either confidential or classified. While under oath, his interim successor, Andrew McCabe, on a number of occasions flat-out lied to federal investigators. Or as the office of the inspector general put it: “As detailed in this report, the OIG found that then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the WSJ, and that this conduct violated FBI Offense Codes 2.5 and 2.6. The OIG also concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner described in this report violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”

McCabe purportedly believed Trump was working with the Russians as a veritable spy—a false accusation based entirely on the FBI’s paid, incoherent prevaricator Christopher Steele. And so, McCabe discussed with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein methods to have the president’s conversations wiretapped via a Rosenstein-worn stealthy recording device, presumably without a warrant. Note the FBI ruined the lives of General Michael Flynn and Carter Page with false allegations of criminal conduct or untruthful testimonies. Under current director Christopher Wray, the FBI has surveilled parents at school boards meetings—on the prompt of the National School Boards Association, whose president wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland alleging that bothersome parents upset over critical race indoctrination groups were supposedly violence-prone and veritable terrorists. Under Wray, the FBI staged the psychodramatic Mar-a-Lago raid on an ex-president’s home. The FBI likely leaked the post facto myths that the seized documents contained “nuclear codes” or “nuclear secrets.”

Read more …

What could go wrong?

• Pandemic Response Gets A Permanent New Home At The White House (STAT)

The era of the rotating cast of public health czars at the White House may finally be over. Presidents for decades have brought fresh faces to the White House to coordinate federal responses to threats such as Covid-19, mpox, Ebola, AIDS, and the bird flu. Now, Congress aims to give pandemic response a permanent home at the White House.Next year’s government funding package includes a brand-new White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy that would have a director appointed by the president and up to 25 staff members. “They’re not simply going to retire the role that [White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha] plays when the emergency declaration ends,” said J. Stephen Morrison, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the director of its Global Health Policy Center.


“You can’t just keep piling on coordinators, disease by disease.” The new director’s main responsibilities would be to advise the president on preparing for pandemics and other biological threats, to coordinate response activities across the federal government — including research into new countermeasures and distribution of medical supplies — and to evaluate the government’s readiness. The director would also be a member of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Security Council. “The functions outlined are exactly what is needed at the White House, and what I’ve been calling for for years, to avoid having any single agency take the lead on something that overlaps most departments in the U.S. government,” said Ken Bernard, who worked in biodefense policy in both the Clinton and George W. Bush White Houses.

Read more …

Start off with impossible conditions. And then say: hey, we tried!

• Ukraine Calls For UN-Brokered ‘Peace Summit’ In February (RT)

Kiev has proposed holding a so-called “peace summit” by the end of February to mark the one-year anniversary since Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine. The initiative was announced by that country’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who also set out conditions for inviting Moscow to the event. In an interview with AP published on Monday, Kuleba stated that Ukraine will do whatever it can to win its ongoing military conflict with Russia in 2023, but admitted that diplomacy always plays an important role. “Every war ends in a diplomatic way,” Kuleba said, adding that “every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”

The minister noted that the UN was “the best venue for holding this summit, because it is not about making a favor to a certain country” and suggested that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could act as mediator for the event. “He has proven himself to be an efficient mediator and an efficient negotiator, and most importantly, as a man of principle and integrity. So we would welcome his active participation,” Kuleba said about Guterres. Asked about the matter of inviting Russia to this “peace summit,” Kuleba insisted Moscow must first face an “international court” and be prosecuted for supposed war crimes. He also dismissed Putin’s recent calls for negotiations, stating that everything Russia does on the battlefield “proves” that Moscow does not want to talk.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s addressed G20 leaders in Indonesia and laid out a ten-point “peace formula,” which includes the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, an “all for all” prisoner swap, and a tribunal for those Kiev accuses of aggression. Russia, meanwhile, has insisted that Kiev must “recognize the reality on the ground” as a prerequisite for any peace negotiations, including the new status of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia.

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Sleeper cells.

• Report: The CIA Is Directing Sabotage Attacks Inside Russia (Antiwar)

The CIA has been using a European NATO country’s intelligence services to conduct sabotage attacks inside Russia since the February invasion of Ukraine, investigative journalist Jack Murphy reported on Saturday, citing unnamed former US intelligence and military officials. The report said that no US personnel are on the ground in Russia but that the operations are being directed by the CIA. The US is using an ally’s intelligence services to add an extra layer of plausible deniability, and a former US special operations official told Murphy that layer was a major factor in President Biden signing off on the attacks. Murphy said he didn’t name the NATO country whose intelligence services were being used in the report because “doing so might endanger the operational security of cells that are still operational inside of Russia.”

The report appeared on Murphy’s personal website, and in a note at the end of the piece, he explained why it wasn’t published by a media outlet. “While working with editors at mainstream publications I was asked to do things that were illegal and unethical in one instance, and in another instance I felt that a senior CIA official was able to edit my article by making off the record statements, before he leaked a story to The New York Times to undermine this piece,” he wrote. According to the report, the covert campaign inside Russia has been years in the making. Two former military officials said that the NATO country’s spy services had hidden a cache of explosives and equipment in Russia more than a decade ago, and some of the gear has been used recently.

A former US special operations official and US person briefed on the campaign said that the CIA didn’t get involved with the NATO country’s operations inside Russia until 2014. The first time sleeper cells entered Russia that were directed by both the CIA and the NATO ally’s spy service was in 2016, and more entered the country in the following years. The NATO ally provided the undercover operatives with stories to explain their presence in Russia and documents to back them up. The report said that around the time Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the NATO ally’s spy service activated its sleeper cells inside Russia using covert communication, and they were ready for orders on what targets to strike.

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Medvedev becomes more visible. He’s still close to Putin, or so it seems. If anything happens to Putin, he appears to be the go-to guy.

• Medvedev Gives Timeline For Reconciliation With The West (RT)

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has accused Western powers of lying, causing a rift that will remain for decades to come, and convincing Moscow that there is no sense in trying to reach an agreement with them. Medevedev, who serves as deputy chair of the national Security Council, wrote in a keynote article on Sunday that the year 2022 has shattered illusions about the West, proving that its promises and principles cannot taken at face value. “Alas, there is nobody in the West we could deal with about anything for any reason,” he wrote. Medvedev went on to say that nations that claim global leadership deceived Russia when they claimed NATO expansion in Europe posed no threat to it.

They again lied when they backed a peace roadmap for Ukraine, which in reality was meant to give Kiev time to prepare for an eventual armed conflict with Russia, he added. The conflict in Ukraine is a war against Russia by a proxy, which was long in the making, Medvedev claimed. The behavior of Washington and others this year “is the last warning to all nations: there can be no business with the Anglo-Saxon world [because] it is a thief, a swindler, a card-sharp that could do anything.” For Russia, there will be no restoration of normal relations with the West for years or even decades to come, Medvedev predicted. “From now on we will do without them until a new generation of sensible politicians comes to power there. We will be careful and alert. We will develop relations with the rest of the world,” he wrote.

However, Medvedev argued that the loss of Western leadership could be a net positive, considering what he called the moral bankruptcy of the US-led neo-colonial order. Elites that caused the financial meltdown of 2008 and the ongoing global crisis are unable to claim global leadership, he wrote. “The West is incapable of offering to the world any new ideas, which would take humanity forward, solve global problems, or provide collective security,” the former president insisted. Medvedev expects that several regional blocs will emerge in the near future, each with its own values and rules, and that Russia will have its place in the new order.

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A very strange Twitter thread from Medvedev. Elon Musk reacted: “Those are definitely the most absurd predictions I’ve ever heard, while also showing astonishing lack of awareness of the progress of artificial intelligence and sustainable energy..”

• What Can Happen In 2023 (Dmitry Medvedev)

On the New Year’s Eve, everybody’s into making predictions Many come up with futuristic hypotheses, as if competing to single out the wildest, and even the most absurd ones. Here’s our humble contribution.


1. Oil price will rise to $150 a barrel, and gas price will top $5.000 per 1.000 cubic meters
2. The UK will rejoin the EU
3. The EU will collapse after the UK’s return; Euro will drop out of use as the former EU currency
4. Poland and Hungary will occupy western regions of the formerly existing Ukraine
5. The Fourth Reich will be created, encompassing the territory of Germany and its satellites, i.e., Poland, the Baltic states, Czechia, Slovakia, the Kiev Republic, and other outcasts
6. War will break out between France and the Fourth Reich. Europe will be divided, Poland repartitioned in the process
7. Northern Ireland will separate from the UK and join the Republic of Ireland
8. Civil war will break out in the US, California. and Texas becoming independent states as a result. Texas and Mexico will form an allied state. Elon Musk’ll win the presidential election in a number of states which, after the new Civil War’s end, will have been given to the GOP
9. All the largest stock markets and financial activity will leave the US and Europe and move to Asia
10. The Bretton Woods system of monetary management will collapse, leading to the IMF and World Bank crash. Euro and Dollar will stop circulating as the global reserve currencies. Digital fiat currencies will be actively used instead
Season greetings to you all, Anglo-Saxon friends, and their happily oinking piglets!

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“..a delicate balancing act between fighting inflation and exacerbating the slowdown..”

• ECB Governing Council Says Growth Of Key Rate In 2023 Possible (Az.)

A veteran member of the European Central Bank’s rate-setting council believes it has only just passed the halfway point of its tightening cycle and needs to be “in there for the long game” to tame high inflation, Report informs referring to Financial Times. After more than a decade of aggressive easing, 2022 was the year when many leading central banks began to raise rates in response to soaring prices. The ECB increased borrowing costs by 2.5 percentage points, capping the year with its fourth rise in a row to leave its benchmark deposit rate at 2 percent.


Klaas Knot, head of the Dutch central bank and one of the governing council’s more hawkish rate-setters, told the Financial Times that, with five policy meetings between now and July 2023, the ECB would achieve “quite a decent pace of tightening” through half percentage point rises in the months ahead before borrowing costs eventually peaked by the summer. In the eurozone, consumer price inflation hit a record high of 10.6 percent in the year to October – more than five times the ECB’s 2 percent target. In the Netherlands, inflation has been higher still, peaking at 17.1 percent in September. However, growth in the bloc is grinding to a halt, leaving central bankers facing a delicate balancing act between fighting inflation and exacerbating the slowdown.

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“The Polish leg of the route is currently being used to pump stored gas from Germany.”

• Russia Ready To Resume Gas Supplies To EU – Official (RT)

Moscow is ready to restart supplies of natural gas to the EU via the Yamal-Europe Pipeline, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on Monday. He noted that shipments through the route were halted for political reasons. According to the official, the EU remains a relevant market for Russia, which is able to resume supplies to a region suffering from a gas shortage. “For example, the Yamal-Europe Pipeline, which was shut down for political reasons, remains unused,” Novak said. Gas supplies via the pipeline, which usually flow westward, have been mostly reversed since Poland terminated a supply contract with Russia ahead of its end-2022 expiry date, after rejecting Moscow’s demand for ruble payments. The Polish leg of the route is currently being used to pump stored gas from Germany.


In response to Warsaw’s move, Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom cut off supplies, saying it could no longer send gas via Poland, while Moscow imposed sanctions against the firm that owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline. Although Russian gas deliveries to the EU via the Nord Stream and Yamal-Europe pipelines have been halted, Russian gas is still being supplied to certain European buyers via a transit line through Ukraine and the TurkStream pipeline through Türkiye. Despite the persisting problems, Novak says he still sees the EU as a viable market for Russia. “Today we can confidently say that there is a stable demand for our gas. Therefore, we continue to consider Europe as a potential market for our products. It is clear that a large-scale campaign was launched against us, which ended with acts of sabotage against the Nord Stream pipelines,” he said. The market for LNG also remains open, according to Novak, who noted that Russian LNG supplies to the EU are expected to grow to 21 billion cubic meters by the end of the year.

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“We don’t want gas and oil supplies from Russia any more, at the same time our ‘green’ friends are restarting coal-fired power plants..”

• Germany Becoming ‘Dysfunctional’ State – MP (RT)

Germany faces a serious risk of going bankrupt due to the government’s inability to find a viable solution to the current energy crisis, the Vice President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Kubicki, said in an interview published in the national Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag. According to the official, Germans now have the impression that their country is on the way to becoming a “dysfunctional state.” “Infrastructure, energy prices and the inability of the Bundeswehr [the country’s armed forces] to protect us are challenges that require immediate action from the German authorities, otherwise things will go wrong,” he said.

Kubicki blasted Economy Minister Robert Habeck over purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the US for “a lot of money” while at the same time refusing to mine cheaper shale gas in Germany “for purely ideological reasons.” He added that the German authorities should revise their approach to nuclear power plants, which should continue operating while the country is facing an energy crisis. “We don’t want gas and oil supplies from Russia any more, at the same time our ‘green’ friends are restarting coal-fired power plants, while preventing a reasonable extension of the life of nuclear power plants,” Kubicki said, commenting on Habeck’s latest decisions.

The MP called for a change in the government’s strategy and the rejection of excessive financial assistance in the face of the energy crisis. “If we continue to pursue the policies of paying out money for years as part of the fight against the energy crisis, then we are at risk of national bankruptcy if not state socialism,” Kubicki warned. According to the Vice Speaker, the funds that Berlin is planning to spend on additional purchases of energy resources amid the crunch were originally destined for investments in other areas. “This money cannot be printed or covered by taxpayers. We cannot exist in a state of financial crisis for a long time due to the risk of shortage of funds to support other areas,” he said.

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Poland seeks more power.

• Return Europe To A Union Of Homelands (RMX)

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that “he and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will change Europe.” In an interview for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Morawiecki explained that Europe and power should return to stronger nation states. “We do not believe in a superstate of 27 EU member states. We want a return of a union of homelands,” underlined the Polish prime minister. Morawiecki pointed out that Europe has to choose between an authentic solidarity of equal states, or a model of a single superstate in which “decisions will be made in a couple of the largest capitals, disregarding other countries.” Referring to Russian aggression in Ukraine, Morawiecki pointed out that the Ukraine war will end only with the defeat of Vladimir Putin.


“We have warned that Russia’s colonial ambitions are a threat to eastern European countries and the entire EU,” said Morawiecki, adding that Europe must do everything to aid Ukraine, as the fall of Kyiv would open the way for Russia to conquer Europe. “Together with [Italian] Prime Minister Meloni, we stand to defend Ukraine. We realistically assess the threat posed by the Russian Federation,” the Polish leader added. According to Morawiecki, some European nations are more acutely aware of the Russian threat due to their past experiences. “That is why we all think about armaments and protecting against the threat from the East,” he explained Meloni often refers to policies pursued by Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government, using them as a model and an example. She often mentions that European conservative parties need to cooperate, previously saying: “We will transform ideas into a government policy, just as our friends from the Czech and Polish republics have done.”

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It’s one big party.

• Republican Senators Turn On Leader Mitch McConnell Over $1.7t Omnibus (DM)

Donald Trump tore into his Republican rival, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, on Monday over his role in helping pass a bipartisan $1.7 trillion ‘omnibus’ spending bill to keep federal government agencies and the military funded through September 2023. The former president dusted off an old favorite monicker of his for McConnell, calling him an ‘Old Crow,’ while also claiming that Democrats ‘must have something’ on the Kentucky legislator after he was one of 18 Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the bill. He had stopped using the nickname for a time after McConnell said ‘Old Crow’ was his favorite brand of Kentucky bourbon, and even once gifted bottles in a veiled dismissal of Trump’s taunts. Trump made his thoughts on the spending bill clear, deriding it as ‘ominous’ and claiming it would not have been passed under his administration.

He also hurled a racist insult he previously lodged at McConnell’s wife, his own former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. ‘The Marxist Democrats must have something really big on Mitch McConnell in order to get him and some of his friendly “Republican” Senators to pass the horrendous “All Democrat, All the Way” OMINOUS Bill,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social app. ‘It gives Border Security to other countries, but ZERO $’s to the U.S., it fully funds the corrupt “Justice” Department, FBI (which RIGGED the Presidential Election!), and even the Trump Hating Special “Prosecutor.” It is also a massive giveaway & capitulation to CHINA, making COCO CHOW so happy!’ He wrote in a follow-up post, ‘If the Old Crow waited just 10 days, the Republican Majority in the House could have made the “Ominous” Bill MUCH, MUCH, MUCH BETTER.’

‘Just another win for the Democrats, Mitch, that wouldn’t have happened if “Trump” were President!’ Trump concluded. A pair of Republican senators loudly denounced McConnell on Sunday over his shepherding through the $1.7 trillion bill. The funding package includes fiscal victories for both parties. Many on the right who voted for it made clear that it was not the fiscal agenda they preferred but believed it was necessary to keep the military and other critical aspects of the government running smoothly. But federal spending priority talks have divided the GOP. Many on the right having opposed working with Democrats on where the government spends dollars next year.

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“..it still doesn’t explain how these outfits became the enemies of truth itself, and by extension, enemies of reality.”

• What It’s Really About (Kunstler)

Not so many years ago, the force counter-balancing criminal misconduct in the government was the news media, even if the reporters and editors claimed to be on the political Left. Or, shall we say, especially if they were on the Left, because the Left in those days fervently championed free speech. Reporters of that long-ago day (Seymour Hersh, John Sack, and Michael Herr) would be out digging up the true facts of a big event — say, the US Military’s deadly blunders and scams in Vietnam — and editors would plaster screaming headlines about it on the front page: GENERAL SAYS “WE HAD TO DESTROY THE VILLAGE TO SAVE IT!” When the venerable news-spieler Walter Cronkite of CBS began to hint that the war was a fiasco, public opinion across the country shifted decisively against it.

Of course, those crimes and sins were committed against people in distant lands. Now, the administrative weight of the US is rolling over its own citizens, and over the Constitution — and the news media is uniformly and enthusiastically in favor of suppressing the news about it. How that happened is one of several cosmic mysteries of our time, along with who exactly runs “Joe Biden,” and how did the many nations of Western Civ adopt in lock-step Covid-19 policies aimed at harming their own people? No reporter even of the alt.news division even tried to get inside the head of New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet during the years of RussiaGate. Did he believe all that crap his paper was putting out? Now, you realize, it’s established fact (in the federal court record) that the Steele Dossier and everything spun off of it was a flim-flam confected by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

But even at the time, say 2017 to 2019, independent journalists were reporting the truth about it — for example, the FBI’s long-running fraud in the FISA Court — while The New York Times ardently inveighed against any emerging fact-pattern that broke through its wall of propaganda. The Times was showered with awards for that, including the Pulitzer Prize for its completely fallacious RussiaGate coverage. One easy answer is that The Times and many of its “legacy” cohorts — The WashPo, CBS, NBC, and ABC — have volunteered to be the public relations office of the Democratic Party, covering-up anything and everything the Party does against the public interest. And while that appears to be the case, it still doesn’t explain how these outfits became the enemies of truth itself, and by extension, enemies of reality.

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Julian Claus

 

 

 

 

Montreal 2010

 

 

 

 

Cobalt

 

 

Piano stairs

 

 

 

 

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