Menu Icon

Debt Rattle November 12 2023

Nov 122023
 
 November 12, 2023  Posted by at 10:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Canaletto Venice, View of the Churches of the Redentore and San Giacomo 1750

 

• We Are ‘The Resistance’ (Julian Rose)
• Self-defence and the Right to Resist in Palestine (Sinclair/Cohn)
• West Asian Governments Take Stance Against Israeli Occupation (Rahman)
• Israel Acting Like ‘Spoiled Child’ Of The West – Erdogan (RT)
• WaPo Calls Ukrainian Colonel ‘Coordinator’ of Nord Stream Attacks (Sp.)
• Ukraine Risks Losing Entire Fleet of Leopard Tanks (Sp.)
• EU Can Circumvent Hungarian Veto On Ukraine Aid – Media (RT)
• Next Month Could Decide Ukraine Conflict – Macron (RT)
• Germany Wants To Send Asylum Seekers To Africa – WSJ (RT)
• From The Testimony of Special Counsel David Weiss (Techno Fog)
• David Weiss and America’s First Nihilist Prosecutor (Turley)
• NBC Compares Hunter’s Influence Peddling to Haley’s Daughter’s TikTok (Turley)
• Gerald Celente Withdraws Support due to Kennedy’s Israel War Position (Dick)
• We are Spartacus (John Pilger)

 

 

 

 

Nakba

 

 

 

 

Arab

 

 

Norway

 

 

 

 

Gaza gas

 

 

Assad

 

 

 

 

London protest


https://twitter.com/i/status/1723377760653942956

 

 

Patrick Henningsen @21WIRE: “All of the main “so horrific” narratives attributed to Hamas on Oct 7th & subsequently used by Israel and western warmongers to justify the carpet bombing and genocide in #Gaza – have been proven to be completely fabricated. Thats right: total fake news.”

 

 

 

 

“..the most telling indicator of the bankruptcy of what is considered to be ‘civilised society’”

• We Are ‘The Resistance’ (Julian Rose)

As one attempts to make sense of the horrors of war that the global media flashes across screens and newsprint, day and night 24/7, one can feel a numbing sensation closing down one’s ability to respond, as an organic human being should respond. The breathtaking volume of bombs, blood and brutality that form the centrepiece of the devastation in Gaza, comes on top of the seemingly interminable hostilities playing-out their realities in Ukraine. In all of this, any sign of a credible, reasoned and rational intervention is lost beneath a sea of soulless, hypocritical statements from those in positions of ‘authority’ on the world stage. National or geopolitical ‘positions’ taken by rolled-out representatives of the status quo, are held to be more important than responses that have some link to heart felt emotions.

Scenes of mass genocide and ethnic cleansing are condoned as ‘acceptable’ if those responding to the bloodbath see some political or geopolitical advantage in backing the cause of the chief protagonist. Those who for long periods of their lives are deeply repressed and isolated, seek reprisals if ever the chance comes their way to breakout of slavery. This is, under permanent conditions of inhuman containment, an almost inevitable reaction. One cannot judge behaviour patterns of those suffering under conditions of persistent repression, as being in any way comparable to what are considered acceptable behaviour patterns in times of relative peace and freedom. The human struggle for a basic degree of liberty is forced into taking the form of a violent struggle when no other support intervenes to bring justice to bear.

This lack of coordinated intervention to end a massacre is the most perilous aspect of the ‘Israel-Hamas’ conflict, and it the most telling indicator of the bankruptcy of what is considered to be ‘civilised society’. A fear of going against the dogma of what constitutes the pecking order of the global power pyramid, appears to paralyse nations from coming together to enforce a humane path of conflict intervention and resolution, however tenuous that might initially be. But the truth is, that behind this implausible state of impasse, is a small anti-life global cult that wishes to prolong the pain and destruction for its own ends, and covertly backs both sides of the conflict in order to produce the maximum disruption, chaos and death.

Yes, this is pure evil in action. It is the manifestation of a long standing, once covert, but now overt demonic ambition – whose roots go far back in human history – and which has recently emerged as the chief protagonist of disruptive chaos and division now manifesting at the foundational level of our daily lives. The problem for all of us who are determined to resist the manifestations of such dark actors, is that this cult is very clever, highly deceptive and well disguised. Its main agents wear a fixed smile, a pressed shirt and are very well rehearsed in powers of communication. Psychopaths in a suit. One would never guess that they harbour an abiding hate for a creative, loving humanity. But they do.

Read more …

“A state cannot invoke the right of self-defence to defend against an attack which originates inside a territory it occupies..”

• Self-defence and the Right to Resist in Palestine (Sinclair/Cohn)

[..] The UN charter requires all states to settle their international disputes peacefully so as not to endanger international peace and security. That doesn’t just apply to states, but also to the settlement of any international disputes. The charter says no state can use military force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state “or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the UN.” Although Israel denies that Palestine is a state, the Israeli Supreme Court in the Targeted Killings case recognised the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians to be of an international character. Israel cannot use the Palestinians’ lack of statehood to justify its use of military force.

The only two exceptions to the prohibition on the use of force are when a state acts in self-defence or the [UN] security council authorises force. A state may use military force in self-defence under Article 51 of the charter “if an armed attack occurs” against a state. The use of armed force for reprisal or retaliation is prohibited. For an armed attack to give rise to the right of self-defence, it must be directed from outside the territory under the control of the defending state. A state cannot invoke the right of self-defence to defend against an attack which originates inside a territory it occupies. Because Israel has continued to occupy Gaza, it has relinquished its right to claim self-defence in response to the Palestinian attacks.

In its 2004 advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) established the non-applicability of “self-defence” under Article 51 in the situation between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel remains an occupying power in Gaza despite its unilateral removal of settlements. After the 2005 election of Hamas, Israel imposed a blockade against Gaza which is specifically listed as an act of aggression under UN general assembly resolution 3314. An occupying force has a duty to protect the people it occupies; it cannot claim self-defence against the occupied.

Actions taken by Palestinians to resist the blockade are not “acts of aggression” so they do not allow Israel to claim it is acting in self-defence. Aside from the illegality of targeting and killing civilians, what does international law say about Palestinians resisting the occupation, including with armed force? Whether the use of force in the first instance is lawful is a separate question from how that force is carried out. For targeting and killing civilians and taking hostages, Hamas leaders can be charged with war crimes. The Palestinians, however, have the right to self-determination and the right to resist Israel’s occupation of their territory, including through armed struggle.

Read more …

Driving the Arab world together.

• West Asian Governments Take Stance Against Israeli Occupation (Rahman)

The responses to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza from some of the West Asian countries have set an interesting pattern. These responses defy a decades long trend of muted opposition and behind the curtain compromises. More importantly, this is yet another indication of growing assertion and independence of these countries from US hegemony. Since the 1980s, the US was able to use its military and economic power to create a complete hegemony over the ruling classes in the West Asian region. The countries which maintained their independence were exceptions, such as Syria and Iran. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was forced to seek a compromise with the occupation, after governments in the region threatened to withdraw their support, under clear US pressure.

In this sense, the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993 and in 1995 is seen as a part of the US scheme for the region. The absence of any strong opposition to Israel’s repeated wars and large scale human rights violations in Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories in the intervening period can be explained in the context of that US hegemony. In a general way, one can see that the countries which did not fall in line with the US were forced into endless wars starting with Iraq, then Yemen, Libya, and Syria or isolated through prolonged sanctions such as in Iran. Egypt and Jordan, highly dependent on the US, had long established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively and played a crucial role in forcing Palestinians to accept the unviable Oslo agreements.

Those who could not establish formal relations with Israel were persuaded to maintain a kind of neutrality by not criticizing Israeli war crimes in the occupied territories. The dependence on the US arms and military assistance led some of the Gulf countries and Morocco to even sign a normalization deal with Israel in recent years. Ever since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza, however, the positions of tacit and explicit compliance with Israel have changed. Many countries in the region, including those who had signed the so-called Abraham Accords, have taken assertive positions on the issue, with many calling Israel an aggressor and demanding an end to the occupation. The visits of the US president Joe Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken were ineffective in getting any public assurances from the regional leaders prompting the US to deploy more armed personnel and more warships in the region.

Egypt has refused to open Rafah borders as requested by Israel and the US so that they could push millions of Palestinians out of Gaza for an indefinite period. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi even advised Israel to relocate the displaced Palestinians in its Negev desert. Egyptian authorities allowed large scale gatherings of people in solidarity rallies for Palestine, perhaps for the first time since the military coup in 2013. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called the bombings in Gaza a massacre and criticized Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as someone “not worth talking to.” Turkey eventually withdrew its ambassador from Israel.

Read more …

“It is a shame that Western countries, always a voice for human rights and freedoms, remain silent on the massacre in Palestine..”

• Israel Acting Like ‘Spoiled Child’ Of The West – Erdogan (RT)

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hit out at the collective West for inaction amid what he said was an ongoing “massacre in Palestine,” adding that the Israeli government is behaving like a “spoiled child” in its response to Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7. Speaking at a joint Arab-Islamic summit in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh on Saturday, Erdogan accused Western nations of double standards and highlighted what he sees as contrasts in their responses to other global conflicts. He added that “the Israeli government is acting like the spoiled child of the West, and it has to compensate for the damages that it causes.” “It is a shame that Western countries, always a voice for human rights and freedoms, remain silent on the massacre in Palestine,” Erdogan said, according to the Anadolu news agency.

“We are faced with unprecedented barbarism in history, where hospitals, schools, and refugee camps are bombed and civilians are massacred.” Saturday’s emergency summit at which the Turkish leader spoke was jointly organized by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as representatives of the Arab and Islamic world convened to discuss the Israeli-Hamas conflict. In his comments, Erdogan added that Western countries “are not even making a call for a ceasefire to Israel.” On Thursday, US President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House that he currently sees “no possibility” for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that this would only benefit Hamas. Erdogan also stressed the importance of supplying fuel to places in urgent need in Gaza, particularly hospitals, and said that Türkiye will provide ten flights of essential supplies to El Arish airport in Egypt to be dispatched to Gaza.

He also suggested the establishment of an OIC fund to help with the rebuilding of Gaza, saying that Türkiye would provide comprehensive support. Israel has launched an unprecedented military bombardment of the densely-populated Gaza enclave in retaliation for Hamas’ assault on its territory last month and as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resultant pledge to destroy Hamas. Israeli officials said on Friday that about 1,200 of its citizens –mostly civilians– died in the attack, revising downwards its prior estimates. In excess of 11,000 people have died in more than four weeks of artillery and airstrikes in Gaza, Palestinian health officials have said, with about 40% of them children. Independent aid organizations have also warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis as vital supplies dwindle and more and more people seek medical treatment in a health system already over capacity.

Read more …

Let’s cut a deal. If Seymour Hersh says he was wrong, we can talk about alternative narratives. Until then, this is just one of many suspicious stories.

• WaPo Calls Ukrainian Colonel ‘Coordinator’ of Nord Stream Attacks (Sp.)

Ukrainian colonel Roman Chervinsky was the alleged coordinator of the attack on the Nord Sream pipelines, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing Ukrainian and European Officials as well as other people familiar with details of the operation. The newspaper, which called Chervinsky a senior Ukrainian military officer with close ties to the country’s intelligence, reported that the colonel allegedly played a key role in the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year. Chervinsky was the “coordinator” of the operation, and he did not act alone, the report also said. The Ukrainian officer took orders from more senior officials, who ultimately reported to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with how the attack was carried out. The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions in September 2022.

The pipeline’s operator, Nord Stream AG, said that the damage was unprecedented and it was impossible to estimate the time repairs might take. Denmark, Germany and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own investigation with charges of international terrorism. No official results of the investigations have yet been announced, but Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023 alleging that the explosions had been organized by the United States with the support of Norway. Washington has denied any involvement in the incident. In mid-July, media reported that Dutch military intelligence had informed the CIA of Ukraine’s plans to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines – months before the attacks happened.

Read more …

“..a quarter of Ukraine’s Leopard 2 tanks, including the Leopard 2A6 modification, had been destroyed by Russian forces within two weeks..”

• Ukraine Risks Losing Entire Fleet of Leopard Tanks (Sp.)

Ukrainian soldiers still cannot use German-made Leopard tanks properly and face a risk of completely losing these armored vehicles, Forbes magazine has reported. With Kiev using both Leopard 1 and 2 tanks in the Russian special operation zone, the US magazine recalled that Ukraine is due to receive 195 more Leopard 1A5s in the foreseeable future. “All those Leopard 1A5s represent an opportunity, albeit a risky one,” the magazine noted, referring to the fact that Ukraine has already lost at least 13 “of its best Leopard 2 tanks” since the beginning of Kiev’s now-botched summer counteroffensive.

Now, Forbes went on, what Ukrainian soldiers should not do is “what they frequently have done with the Leopard 2s: drive them in small groups, without much infantry support, directly toward Russian positions—often across minefields and artillery and drone kill-zones.” The news outlet also cautioned that almost two hundred Leopard 1A5s “will disappear quickly if the Ukrainians don’t deploy them the right way.” This comes after the outlet reported that a quarter of Ukraine’s Leopard 2 tanks, including the Leopard 2A6 modification, had been destroyed by Russian forces within two weeks in the special operation zone.

In all, Western countries pledged to provide the Zelensky regime with 85 Leopard 2s. To date, they have delivered a total of 71. Kiev’s summer counteroffensive, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said had ended in total failure, led to the Ukrainian Army losing more than 500 tanks and almost 1,900 armored vehicles of various classes. The US, along with its NATO allies, ramped up their supplies to Kiev shortly after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly warned that such assistance adds to the prolongation of the conflict.

Read more …

Got to keep the sinkhole open.

• EU Can Circumvent Hungarian Veto On Ukraine Aid – Media (RT)

The EU will be able to grant Ukraine €50 billion ($53.4 billion) in aid even if Hungary vetoes it, Reuters reported on Friday, citing unnamed officials in the bloc. The European Commission has proposed giving Ukraine further grants and loans to help in the conflict with Russia, although Hungary and Slovakia vetoed the move last month. The EU’s 27 members will next vote on the €50 billion aid package at a summit in Brussels in December. If Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and peace talks in Ukraine, vetoes the move again, the bloc could circumvent this by asking each of the other EU governments to set up their own aid packages for Kiev, two EU officials told Reuters.

According to the news agency, one official said “people get fed up with Budapest holding everyone hostage,” adding that “the workaround is tiresome, but we have it if need be.” A second official agreed, insisting that “the issue of money for Ukraine will be solved one way or another, Kiev will get EU support.” Orban previously explained that he had blocked the aid package for Ukraine because it was “obvious” that Kiev “will not win on the frontline,” and that Brussels’ strategy of sanctioning Russia while pumping Ukraine with money and weapons had failed.

The EU has authorized a total of €83 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s military operation in February 2022, according to the European Commission. Despite Western assistance, Kiev’s much-hyped summer counteroffensive failed to meet its objectives. The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated that Kiev has lost more than 90,000 troops since June, as well as over 55 tanks and 1,900 armored vehicles. Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, acknowledged last week that Kiev’s troops were unlikely to make a “deep and beautiful breakthrough,” adding that an attritional trench war could “drag on for years” and grind down his country.

Read more …

It was decided ages ago.

• Next Month Could Decide Ukraine Conflict – Macron (RT)

The Ukraine conflict could reach a turning point by the end of this year, French President Emmanuel Macron has predicted, several months into Kiev’s counteroffensive, which has so far failed to make significant gains. However, he ruled out the possibility of Ukraine opening talks with Russia in the foreseeable future. In an interview with the BBC released on Friday, Macron claimed that if Moscow prevails over Kiev, “you will have a new imperial power” in Europe that, he argued, would threaten many of its neighbors, including former Soviet republics. The French leader reiterated that the West should continue to support Ukraine with military assistance, arguing that next month will be critical in the conflict. However, he did not specify how events in December could affect the eventual outcome.

Regarding a possible cessation of hostilities, Macron suggested that it is “not yet” time for Ukraine to come to the negotiating table with Russia, and that a decision on the matter should be made by Kiev independently. However, he said that at some point it might be possible to “have fair and good negotiations, and to come back to the table and find a solution with Russia”. Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been underway since early June, but the frontline remains largely unchanged. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has estimated Ukrainian losses at more than 90,000 service members as well as 600 tanks and 1,900 armored vehicles since the start of the push. US network NBC News reported last week that Western officials were engaged in “delicate” talks with Kiev to see whether it could consider some concessions to Russia to end the fighting.

According to the article, the calls were driven by fears in the West that the hostilities have “reached a stalemate,” and that Ukraine is “running out of forces.” Russia has repeatedly said it is open to talks with Kiev. Last autumn, however, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree banning all negotiations with the current leadership in Moscow after four former Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in public referendums. Last year, Macron suggested that any peace talks on Ukraine would have to include discussions on security guarantees for Russia, especially regarding the positioning of NATO forces in Europe. Ukrainian officials, however, rejected the idea out of hand.

Read more …

Creative solutions.

• Germany Wants To Send Asylum Seekers To Africa – WSJ (RT)

Germany is working on a plan to send some asylum seekers to Africa while their cases are pending, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Berlin is considering asking Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, and other African countries to house some asylum seekers while their applications are processed, as the procedure can take “years,” the newspaper said, citing unnamed German officials. The proposals are still being negotiated but could include the permanent resettlement in these countries of people who do not win refugee status, according to the WSJ’s sources. The scheme could also be used to encourage those who are eligible for protection in Germany to settle in third countries.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, his top aides and key ministers “have been exploring deals to reroute some refugee flows through Africa for months and are now drafting offers to various governments,” unnamed officials told the WSJ. News of the potential change in Germany’s migration policy comes after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced plans to set up reception centers for asylum seekers in Albania. She insisted that the agreement “could become a model of cooperation between EU and non-EU countries in managing migration flows.” The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has criticized the deal, accusing Italy and Albania of focusing on “preventing people from arriving in the EU rather than creating safe and legal avenues for those seeking refuge.” It added that the idea of “processing migrants” was “deeply dehumanizing.”

At the same time, the UK government is fighting a court battle to be allowed to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda. Attempts to arrange a flight carrying migrants to the East African country was blocked last year after legal challenges, although the UK High Court is expected to make a final decision next week. According to The Times, Germany’s immigration system is facing major challenges due to a rise in the number of asylum seekers, as well as the arrival of more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled their country since the start of Russia’s military operation in February 2022. Many local German authorities reportedly say they have reached full capacity and can no longer accept irregular migrants, while the number of people seeking asylum in the country over the course of 2023 is expected to exceed 300,000, The Times said.

Read more …

“..Weiss has investigated Hunter Biden for approximately five years..”

• From The Testimony of Special Counsel David Weiss (Techno Fog)

Ever since explosive whistleblower testimony detailing DOJ efforts to sabotage the Hunter Biden investigation was released this summer, the US Attorney (and now Special Counsel) in charge of that investigation – David Weiss – has been under siege. Beset with allegations of misconduct by those who had been part of his investigative team, and self-inflicted mistakes such as allowing the statute of limitations on tax crimes to pass, Weiss (who was appointed Special Counsel in August) provided closed-door testimony this week before the House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Jim Jordan.It was a rare opportunity to obtain testimony from a Special Counsel – they typically only testify after their reports have been completed.

And while he refused to answer specifics concerning Hunter’s plea deal, the status of his investigation, and why he allowed the statute of limitations to pass on some of Hunter’s tax crimes, Weiss’s testimony does provide important context regarding what has transpired since his investigation began. For background, Weiss has investigated Hunter Biden for approximately five years. According to the testimony of whistleblower Gary Shapley, a highly-credentialed IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent, this investigation “has been handled differently than any investigation I’ve ever been a part of for the past 14 years of my IRS service.” Agent Shapley explained:

“Some of the decisions seem to be influenced by politics. But whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation. These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples.”

As we noted back in June, the preferential treatment included: denials of normal investigative steps like looking into Hunter Biden’s communications; tipping off the Biden Transition Team that Hunter Biden would be interviewed; and refusing search warrants of Joe Biden’s home, though the Assistant US Attorney (Lesley Wolf) helping with the case admitted it was “likely” there would be evidence. One of the biggest revelations from the whistleblowers was that Weiss, who was the Delaware US Attorney at the time, was denied authority to file charges against Hunter Biden in DC or California.

Read more …

“Congress was scheduled to hear from Weiss when Garland suddenly made him a special counsel [..] That allowed Weiss to delay any appearance..”

• David Weiss and America’s First Nihilist Prosecutor (Turley)

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that all things are matters of mere interpretation and “whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” One has to understand Nietzsche and his nihilistic rejection of meaning to fully appreciate this week’s interview with special counsel David Weiss. Indeed, Weiss may be the first openly nihilistic prosecutor, who views justice itself as a mere matter of interpretation. Weiss appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, which is looking into the handling of the investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal conduct. The one thing that both Republican and Democratic members appear to agree upon is that the Weiss investigation was an unmitigated mess — years of delay and internal dissension over the indictment of the president’s son.

Indeed, after years of denial, some Democratic members and the journalists are now admitting that Hunter Biden clearly broke the law. The Weiss investigation, however, languished for years even as some of us were pointing out that the statute of limitations was about to pass on felonies. At the same time, Attorney General Merrick Garland steadfastly refused to appoint a special counsel into the expanding corruption scandal involving Hunter and other Biden family members selling influence and access. Congress was scheduled to hear from Weiss when Garland suddenly made him a special counsel, though the attorney general did not expressly extend his mandate to cover the corruption allegations. That allowed Weiss to delay any appearance. He would bring gun charges against Hunter, but he has inexplicably still not brought the tax charges that he did not previously allow to expire or charges under laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Weiss has shown no signs of movement as evidence has piled up. Most recently, Hunter’s own tax accountat gave incriminating evidence on his former client from claimed the payment of prostitutes as “a business expense” to allegedly misrepresenting payments as “loans.” As expected, Weiss continued to refuse to answer questions about his lackadaisical approach. That includes obvious questions like why, when whistleblowers said the defense had agreed to an extension of the statute of limitations, Weiss let felonies expire. Those crimes included some of the most serious allegations of influence peddling and corruption facing the Biden family.

Read more …

“..objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful..”

• NBC Compares Hunter’s Influence Peddling to Haley’s Daughter’s TikTok (Turley)

We have often discussed (and even marveled at) the determined effort of mainstream media to ignore the evidence of a massive corruption scandal surrounding the Biden family. However, even at this late date, NBC seems to have achieved singular distinction with a comparison between the criticism of the daughter of Nikki Haley for using TikTok and the criticism of Hunter Biden for influence peddling. During the Republican presidential debate, Vivek Ramaswamy responded to Haley’s criticism of his use of the Chinese-linked social media app, TikTok, by pointing out: “she made fun of me for joining TikTok, while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first.” Haley responded by calling Ramaswamy “scum.” Later Gov. Ron DeSantis said that children need to be out of bounds.

NBC saw an immediate opportunity to denounce the investigation into Hunter Biden: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he believes going after an opponent’s children is ‘out of bounds’ in political warfare. DeSantis, however, goes after President Biden’s son on a weekly basis.” The comparison perfectly captured the all-hands-on-deck effort of the media in resisting coverage of the Biden scandal. A major network wanted the public to see the criticism of Haley’s daughter for using TikTok as the same as criticism of Biden’s son for influence peddling. One child was posting playful social media posts while the other was orchestrating massive payments from foreign figures. This is why polls have shown the media at record lows in terms of public trust. Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that 50% of Americans believe that the news media lies in order to promote an agenda.

Only 25% of Americans reject that premise. The public has largely rejected the mainstream coverage (or lack thereof). A majority believes that Hunter has received special protection in the investigation. We have often discussed the increasing bias and advocacy in major media in the United States. While cable networks have long catered to political audiences on the left or right, mainstream newspapers and networks now openly frame news to fit a political narrative. We previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”

Read more …

It’s kryptonite for Kennedy’s run. Even as Trump and Biden are just as blind to Israel.

• Gerald Celente Withdraws Support due to Kennedy’s Israel War Position (Dick)

Back in December of 2022, virtually nobody was even thinking of the possibility that Rober F. Kennedy, Jr. may run in the 2024 presidential race. One of the few individuals who was thinking of this possibility was political commentor and trends forecaster Gerald Celente. Speaking with host David Knight at the David Knight Show, Celente then not only mentioned the possibility, he enthusiastically recommended that Kennedy run with legal scholar Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey state judge, as his vice president running mate. Four months later, Kennedy announced his decision to seek the presidency in a speech that included some strong expression of antiwar sentiment. That expression of sentiment would appeal to Celente, a peace advocate who has hosted peace rallies in Kingston, New York, where Celente’s trends forecasting operation is located.

Come October, though, Kennedy made clear that so far as Israel goes he would not be a noninterventionist president. Instead, he would back the Israel government to the hilt in its pursuit of its new war. This followed Kennedy in a July interview with Schmuley Boteach making clear that he is a big booster of Israel and declaring that he would try as a candidate “to bring the Democratic Party back to its traditional support of Israel and to explain to my children’s generation the historical context and the moral case for Israel.” Later in the week, Kennedy wrote the following at Twitter: “As President, my support of Israel will be unconditional.” No reasonable person after seeing that declaration would have hope that Kennedy supports seeking peace across-the-board.

But, hope at least could be held out that Kennedy’s unconditional support for Israel would not materialize as support for war because Israel could remain relatively at peace. That last bit of hope was dashed in October after a Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing, and ongoing, massive military attack on Gaza. Indeed, on October 7 — the day of the Hamas attack — Kennedy immediately proclaimed at Twitter that as president he would be absolutely committed to supporting the Israel government in its new war effort, stating:

“This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind.” I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need. However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens. Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.”

Thus we come to Celente, an early and enthusiastic supporter of a Kennedy run, commenting on Wednesday, in his weekly video discussion with Andrew Napolitano, that he no longer supports Kennedy becoming president. “As you well know, I was a huge supporter of RFK Jr. because I believed that he was pro-peace and antiwar,” said Celente early in the discussion. Responding, Napolitano, who is an Advisory Board member for the Ron Paul Institute, confirmed, “he was, he was — at the time that you and I communicated with him — he was the champion of pro-peace and antiwar, and, then. after the Hamas attack to Israel, he did a 180 and now supports the genocide that the Israeli military is perpetrating on the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Watch here Celente and Napolitano’s full discussion, which also includes Napolitano describing his exchange of texts with Kennedy about Kennedy’s Israel war position and Celente proposing that Napolitano now run for president:

Read more …

“The grotesque injustice meted out to David McBride is minted from the injustice consuming his compatriot, Julian Assange..”

• We are Spartacus (John Pilger)

Afghanistan was where the West sent young men weighed down with the ritual of “warriors” to kill people and enjoy it. We know some of them enjoyed it from the evidence of Australian SAS sociopaths, including a photograph of them drinking from an Afghan man’s prosthetic. Not one sociopath has been charged for this and crimes such as kicking a man over a cliff, gunning down children point-blank, slitting throats: none of it “in battle.” David McBride, a former Australian military lawyer who served twice in Afghanistan, was a ‘true believer’ in the system as moral and honourable. He also has an abiding belief in truth, and loyalty. He can define them as few can. This coming week he is in court in Canberra as an alleged criminal.

“An Australian whistleblower,” reports Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer at the Australian Human Rights Law Centre, “[will face] trial for blowing the whistle on horrendous wrongdoing. It is profoundly unjust that the first person on trial for war crimes in Afghanistan is the whistle blower and not an alleged war criminal.” McBride can receive a sentence of up to 100 years for revealing the cover-up of the great crime of Afghanistan. He tried to exercise his legal right as a whistleblower under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which the current attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, says “delivers on our promise to strengthen protections for public sector whistleblowers.” Yet it is Dreyfus, a Labor minister, who signed off on the McBride trial following a punitive wait of four years and eight months since his arrest at Sydney airport: a wait that shredded his health and family.

Those who know David and know of the hideous injustice done to him fill his street in Bondi near the beach in Sydney to wave their encouragement to this good and decent man. To them, and me, he is a hero. McBride was affronted by what he found in the files he was ordered to inspect. Here was evidence of crimes and their cover-up. He passed hundreds of secret documents to the the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Sydney Morning Herald. Police raided the ABC’s offices in Sydney while reporters and producers watched, shocked, as their computers were confiscated by the Federal Police. Attorney-General Dreyfus, self-declared liberal reformer and friend of whistleblowers, has the singular power to stop the McBride trial. A Freedom of Information search of his actions in this direction reveals little, at most, an indifference.

You can’t run a fully-fledged democracy and a colonial war; one aspires to decency, the other is a form of fascism, regardless of its pretensions. Mark the killing fields of Gaza, bombed to dust by apartheid Israel. It is no coincidence that in rich, yet impoverished Britain an “inquiry” is currently being held into the gunning down by British SAS soldiers of 80 Afghans, all civilians, including a couple in bed. The grotesque injustice meted out to David McBride is minted from the injustice consuming his compatriot, Julian Assange. Both are friends of mine. Whenever I see them, I am optimistic. ‘You cheer me,’ I tell Julian as he raises a defiant fist at the end of our visiting period. ‘You make me feel proud,’ I tell David at our favourite coffee shop in Sydney.

Their bravery has allowed many of us, who might despair, to understand the real meaning of a resistance we all share if we want to prevent the conquest of us, our conscience, our self respect, if we prefer freedom and decency to compliance and collusion. In this, we are all Spartacus. Spartacus was the rebellious leader of Rome’s slaves in 71-73 B.C. There is a thrilling moment in the Kirk Douglas movie Spartacus when the Romans call on Spartacus’s men to identify their leader and so be pardoned. Instead hundreds of his comrades stand and raise their fists in solidarity and shout, ‘I am Spartacus!’ The rebellion is under way.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

UFC

 

 

 

 


The lowland nyala or simply nyala, is a spiral-horned antelope native to southern Africa that you might have never seen. As a herbivore, the nyala feeds upon foliage, fruits and grasses. A shy animal, it prefers water holes rather than open spaces.

 

 


The Giant Hand of Vyrnwy: There was this tree in Wales that was 124 years old, it reached higher than a 20 storey building (63.7m (209ft). It was damaged in a storm and had to be felled. Artist Simon O’Rourke carved what remained into this hand as a memorial, a last attempt to reach the sky.

 

 

Piano

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 27 2023

Aug 272023
 
 August 27, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Gustave Dore Dante and the Angel of the Church before the Door of Purgatory 1868

 

• ‘US In Conflict With Itself’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Failed – It’s Time to Reevaluate (Greenwald)
• Biden Staffers Met With Special Counsel Aides Before Trump Indictment (NYP)
• The House Has No Alternative to an Impeachment Inquiry into Joe Biden (Turley)
• Fired Ukraine Prosecutor Corroborates Biden Corruption (ZH)
• World Laughing At EU Over Russia Sanctions – Hungary (RT)
• Tucker Carlson Blasts ‘Creep’ US Ambassador To Hungary (RT)
• No, Biden Can’t Wage Forever War in Ukraine (Sp.)
• Biden Administration Sought Control Over TikTok (RT)
• Prigozhin, Putin, and What Next? (VandenHeuvel)
• I Just Want To Sell Titty Pictures (ZH)

 

 

 

 

VDH

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

“Such domestic conflicts often end with a civil war.”

“Biden’s resolve to aid Kiev against Russia has made him “a hostage of Ukraine, which is very sad for both Ukraine and the US..”

• ‘US In Conflict With Itself’ – Medvedev (RT)

The highly toxic political climate in the US feels like the confrontation between Democrats and Republicans can spiral into a full-blown civil war, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said. Speaking to RT and news agency TASS on Saturday, Medvedev said that there was “a colossal rift between the elites” in the US. “It’s a clash between the conservative Republican establishment and the liberal segment, represented by the Democratic Party, which has actually torn America apart.” “America is currently in a state of internal strife. America is conflicting with itself,” Medvedev, who is currently the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, argued. “Moreover, in my view, this strife is irreconcilable in some aspects. Such domestic conflicts often end with a civil war.”

“I don’t know what will happen in the US, but the level of the conflict right now is [high],” the Russian politician noted. To illustrate his point, Medvedev brought up the ongoing criminal prosecution of ex-president Donald Trump, who is seeking the Republican Party nomination to run against incumbent Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election. Medvedev claimed that the charges against Trump were brought “not for the sake of justice, but to prevent Trump from participating in the new election.” Asked whether there were similarities between the administration of Barack Obama and the Biden White House in terms of dealing with conflicts, Medvedev said that there was more “pragmatism” during the Obama years.

He went on to argue that Biden has been more “involved mentally, politically and economically” in Ukraine, which had “tied up his hands.” Biden’s resolve to aid Kiev against Russia has made him “a hostage of Ukraine, which is very sad for both Ukraine and the US,”Medvedev said. Trump is facing a litany of criminal charges, including for allegedly mishandling classified documents and attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. On Saturday, he was booked at a Georgia jail and released on bail, becoming the first US leader to have a mugshot taken.

Read more …

“..the war in Ukraine is following exactly the same pattern as every other U.S. war fought over the last 50 years.”

• Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Failed – It’s Time to Reevaluate (Greenwald)

There is no question that the war in Ukraine has radically changed. Even Western media outlets that have been steadfastly cheerleading for this war – and, indeed, even Ukrainians themselves – are now admitting what battlefield realities dispositively prove. The much-vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive – the imminent dramatic event we were assured for months would be transformative in finally giving Ukraine the upper hand and dislodging entrenched Russian positions inside Ukraine: a claim that doubled as a propaganda tool to assuage a growingly restless Western population about their endless support for this war – is now, no matter how you slice it, a failure.

After months of multi-pronged attacks, Ukraine’s gains are so minimal and trivial as to be barely worth noting. Russia continues to occupy a very significant chunk of both Eastern and southern Ukraine, along with Crimea which they have held since 2014. Even Western intelligence reports acknowledge that the Russians’ defensive positions are more fortified and entrenched than any seen in decades. The U.S. has already depleted its own stockpiles of artillery and other vital weapons and simply does not have to give Ukraine what they need to have any hope of changing this situation in anything resembling the near- or the short-term future.

What makes all of this vastly worse is that the cost to Ukrainians in their lives is staggeringly high. Consider just this one harrowing data point: more Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the first 18 months of this war than the number of American soldiers killed during the decade-plus war in Vietnam. The Ukrainian men who were eager to fight and who volunteered to do so have long ago been used up – killed, maimed, or exhausted. Zelensky’s only option for continuing combat is to increase domestic repression, impose greater and greater punishment for desertion, and use harsher and harsher means to force those unwilling to fight to do so against their will. In so many ways, this conflict resembles some of the worst horrors of World War I, including the need to put unwilling men who do not want to fight the deeply grim choice of either offering themselves up as cannon fodder or facing unimaginably harsh punishments by a government completely unconstrained by basic considerations of human rights or legal process, operating under full-scale martial law.

At this point, debates over who is to blame for this war barely matter. All that does matter is the question of how this will end, and who will end it. It is simply becoming unsustainable – politically, economically, and morally – to justify having Western nations pour their resources into fueling and continuing this war that Ukraine has less and less chance of winning. At the start of the war, many who claim that the real goal of the US was not to save Ukraine and Ukrainians but rather to destroy them – at the altar of their geostrategic goal of weakening Russia – were accused of being callous and conspiratorial. Now, there is little reasonable space to contest that they were right all along.

Joe Biden just asked for another $25 billion to keep this war going – as he offered $700 checks per household to the victims of the Maui fire and as profits for the European arms industry reach such record heights that they do not even bother to conceal their glee. Even if you were someone who supported the US role in Ukraine back in February of 2022 with the best of intentions – namely, you wanted to help a country seeing to avoid Russian domination – the failed nature of this mission has to compel a re-evaluation of perspective and policy. The last thing this war is doing is protecting Ukraine and Ukrainians. It is destroying both of those while imposing suffering among everyone in the U.S. and Western countries other than a tiny sliver of arms dealers and intelligence agencies. In other words, the war in Ukraine is following exactly the same pattern as every other U.S. war fought over the last 50 years.

Read more …

“..they have trashed every ethical rule that exists and they have created a state police. It is a Biden state prosecutor and a Biden state police..”

• Biden Staffers Met With Special Counsel Aides Before Trump Indictment (NYP)

The White House counsel’s office met with a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents — raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts aimed at President Biden’s likely opponent in 2024. Jay Bratt, who joined the special counsel team in November 2022, shortly after it was formed, took a meeting in the White House on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, White House visitor logs show. They were joined in the 10 a.m. meeting by Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington field office. Nine weeks later, Trump was indicted by Smith’s office on June 8, 2023.

Bratt, 63, also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump was mired in negotiations with the National Archives, who were demanding the return of presidential records from his Mar-a-Lago estate before a formal investigation had not yet been opened. Saba, who is not an attorney, left the White House in May to attend law school. Bratt had a third meeting in the White House in September 2021, this time with Katherine Reily, an advisor to the White House chief of staff’s office. The logs offer no information about what was discussed at the meetings. Critics and legal experts questioned why Bratt was taking meetings at all with the White House counsel’s office while part of an active investigation into President Biden’s likely 2024 Republican opponent.

“There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if it’s coordinated by the highest levels,” said former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a one-time top federal prosecutor in the Southern District. Caroline Saba, a deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, met with Jay Bratt at the White House, records show. When asked if he believed the White House and special counsel were coordinating the prosecution of Trump, Giuliani said: “You’re damn right I do.” “What’s happening is they have trashed every ethical rule that exists and they have created a state police. It is a Biden state prosecutor and a Biden state police,” he continued.

Read more …

“While Garland seems incapable of imagining any crime involving the president, he has made a conclusive — if unintended — case for an impeachment inquiry.“

• The House Has No Alternative to an Impeachment Inquiry into Joe Biden (Turley)

House Republicans had previously demanded that Weiss and his team answer questions about the investigation and the plea bargain. And an appearance before a House committee was planned when Garland suddenly preempted that by doing what many of us have demanded for years: He appointed a special counsel. To the amazement of many, though, he appointed the one prosecutor who should have been categorically excluded — David Weiss. Section 600.3 of the DOJ’s code on special counsels requires an appointment from outside the Justice Department, for obvious reasons. While another prior special counsel, John Durham, also came from within the Justice Department, Durham was retiring from the department at the time of his appointment.

Not only did Garland have to ignore his own regulations to appoint Weiss but he also had to ignore the main qualification: The appointed outside counsel should be someone with “a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making.” Weiss could well have a legitimate defense to Republican complaints that he ran a fixed investigation into Hunter or accusations that he made false statements to his own team. However, he clearly remains under suspicion by many people. That is reflected in an ABC News/Ipsos poll in which almost half of Americans lack trust that the DOJ will conduct the Hunter Biden investigation in a “fair and nonpartisan manner.” In addition to this controversial appointment, Garland again refused to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to include influence-peddling allegations involving President Biden.

Even some liberal pundits are mystified by these moves and why Garland would not simply appoint someone in compliance with the regulations who could guarantee a new and full investigation. So Weiss is now investigating crimes that continue to dwindle in number due to the long delays in prosecution. It is like waiting for winter to go goose hunting in Canada, long after the geese have flown South. Everyone just gets dressed up and fires aimlessly into an empty sky. While Hunter still can be charged on the same meager grounds (and possibly the addition of a Foreign Agents Registration Act charge), the alleged fix remains in the Biden investigation. Now, however, Congress will have a more difficult time getting answers out of Weiss because he can claim he is engaged in an ongoing special counsel investigation, and he can use the eventual special counsel report as much to defend his own actions as to detail any potential crimes.

At the same time, the Biden administration still is resisting the sharing of information with the House, including records held by the National Archives. For months, I have discussed a potential impeachment of the president with Republican House members and have encouraged them not to repeat the abuses of House Democrats in the use of “snap impeachments” and the discarding of fact hearings in the House Judiciary Committee. Garland, however, has effectively forced their hands. While Garland seems incapable of imagining any crime involving the president, he has made a conclusive — if unintended — case for an impeachment inquiry.

With the investigative impediments created by the Weiss appointment and by Garland’s refusal to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to the allegations of Biden family influence-peddling, there is little choice but to commence an impeachment inquiry. The authority of the House is at its apex when carrying out its duties under the impeachment clause. Whatever interest — or ability — remains to prosecute Hunter Biden, Congress has a separate duty to confirm any high crimes and misdemeanors committed by President Biden. Indeed, the Democrats themselves established precedent for carrying out retroactive impeachments for prior offices, including any which may have occurred when Biden was vice president. With the current state of the Hunter Biden investigation and the baffling conduct of Attorney General Garland, there is no alternative for the House but to launch the impeachment inquiry.

Read more …

“The fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal – my firing – isn’t that alone a case of corruption?”

• Fired Ukraine Prosecutor Corroborates Biden Corruption (ZH)

Victor Shokin, the fired Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Biden family corruption (that Donald Trump was impeached for asking about) has spoken out for the first time since 2019 – and says the Bidens did it. To review – Shokin had an active and ongoing investigation into Ukrainian energy company Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, according to a 2020 US Senate Committee report. Zlochevsky, who hired Hunter Biden to sit on his board, granted his own company (Burisma) permits to drill for oil and gas in Ukraine while he was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. Shokin stated in a 2019 deposition that there were five criminal cases against Zlochevesky, including money laundering, corruption, illegal funds transfers, and profiteering through shell corporations while he was a sitting minister.

Now, Shokin tells Fox News that be believes the Bidens were taking bribes. “I do not want to deal in unproven facts. But my firm personal conviction is that yes, this was the case. They were being bribed,” Shokin told the outlet. “The fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal – my firing – isn’t that alone a case of corruption?” he asks in another clip. The full interview with Shokin will air Saturday evening at 8pm ET with Brian Kilmeade. According to the White House, Fox News is giving a “platform to lies” by airing the interview. Republicans, meanwhile, aren’t letting this one go. Earlier this week we noted that memos obtained by Just the News via FOIA request reveal that the Obama Administration was still actively communicating with Shokin after Biden’s December 2015 threat to withhold $1 billion in US aid unless then-President Petro Poroshenko fired him.

The memos reveal: • Senior State Department officials sent a conflicting message to Shokin before he was fired, inviting his staff to Washington for a January 2016 strategy session and sent him a personal note saying they were “impressed” with his office’s work. • U.S. officials faced pressure from Burisma emissaries in the United States to make the corruption allegations go away and feared the energy firm had made two bribery payments in Ukraine as part of an effort to get cases settled. • A top U.S. official in Kyiv blamed Hunter Biden for undercutting U.S. anticorruption policy in Ukraine through his dealings with Burisma. Meanwhile, nobody else seems interested in what Shokin has to say.

Shokin

Read more …

“..we are literally destroying Europe.”

• World Laughing At EU Over Russia Sanctions – Hungary (RT)

Europe is “destroying” itself in the name of supporting Ukraine, and the EU’s sanctions policy is a laughing stock on the global stage, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has declared. He repeated his government’s position that the conflict in Ukraine “must end this minute.” It would be a “baroque and poetic exaggeration” to say that sanctions against Russia have succeeded in crippling the Russian economy, Szijjarto told attendees at the Tranzit political festival on Saturday. “The policy of sanctions has failed,” he said, adding that “everywhere in the world, the European sanctions policy is being laughed at.” The EU has imposed 11 successive rounds of sanctions on Russia since Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine last February. While the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, claimed on Saturday that the sanctions are “producing hard, tangible effects across Russia’s economy,” the IMF has forecast that the Russian economy will continue to grow by 0.7% this year and 1.3% in 2024.

By contrast, the Eurozone entered recession earlier this year after the bloc voluntarily cut itself off from Russia, its largest foreign energy supplier. With the energy crunch crippling German industrial output in particular, Russia overtook Germany as the world’s fifth-largest economy last year, according to the World Bank. European leaders have embraced these self-harming sanctions because they “are in a war psychosis,” Szijjarto said, adding that EU military aid to Kiev is also directly threatening security on the continent. “The USA has pushed Europe into the competition of who will help Ukraine and how much: a military aid competition,” he said, lamenting that European politicians “accepted this provocation” even though “we are literally destroying Europe.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has refused to allow Western weapons to enter Ukraine via Hungarian territory, and Szijjarto has repeatedly voted in Brussels against increasing the EU’s arms fund for Kiev. Although Hungary is a party to all of the EU’s sanctions packages, Orban has managed to carve out exemptions for Hungary to continue oil and nuclear fuel imports from Russia in exchange for supporting these measures. Orban and Szijjarto have both repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, arguing that Kiev cannot hope to defeat Russia on the battlefield, and that the longer the conflict persists, the greater the risk of escalation, and the worse the final terms will be for Ukraine. “The only morally tenable position is [that] the war must end this minute,” he said on Saturday.

Read more …

“It’s a Christian country, and they hate that. That is enough to incite our policymakers in the United States. That’s exactly why they hate Russia, by the way.”

• Tucker Carlson Blasts ‘Creep’ US Ambassador To Hungary (RT)

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has called for the firing of US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, saying the diplomat has undermined the interests of Americans by trying to impose an LGBTQ agenda rather than building stronger relations with Budapest. Speaking at an event earlier this week in Budapest, Carlson said he was compelled to apologize for the treatment of Hungary by President Joe Biden’s administration. “The world is realigning at high speed and turning against the United States, but the Biden administration is spending its time harassing one of our last sincere allies in Europe, Hungary, for the crime of being too Christian,” he said. Carlson claimed that Biden administration officials hate Hungary, just as they hate Russia, for defending Christian values.

Pressman, a California-born lawyer who formerly worked as an aide to then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, has harangued Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government for policies restricting promotion of LGBTQ lifestyles. “For a creep like David Pressman . . . to show up in your country and lecture you about your culture – and threaten you because you do things differently from the way they do things where he lives – hurts the United States and is a grave embarrassment to me as an American and an outrage to me as someone who pays his salary,” Carlson said. “It’s disgusting.” He added, “I’m embarrassed that I share a country of birth with a man, with a villain like this. It’s horrifying.” Carlson argued that Pressman works on behalf of special interests, rather than the American people.

He added, “They hate Hungary, and they hate it not because of what it’s done but because of what it is. It’s a Christian country, and they hate that. That is enough to incite our policymakers in the United States. That’s exactly why they hate Russia, by the way.” He suggested that Hungarians “wait it out” because the US is on an unsustainable political path. “You can’t run a global empire on the imposition of boutique sexual politics on countries that don’t want them.” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto rebuked Pressman in February for allegedly meddling in Budapest’s internal affairs. The US ambassador had accused Hungarian leaders of pushing policies endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Szijjarto declared that the era of foreign envoys telling Hungarians how to live was over.

Carlson likened Pressman’s behavior to the dictates of the Soviet Union, saying the Biden administration was engaged in “exactly the same kind of tyranny.” He added that just as the Soviets imposed their ideology, Washington demands that you “worship transvestites. It’s not so different. It’s a foreign power pushing its weird boutique religion on you, and it’s wrong.” Formerly host of the most highly rated cable news show in US history, Carlson now attracts an even larger audience on his X (formerly known as Twitter) channel. Major US media outlets have lied about the Russia-Ukraine crisis to the extent that most Americans falsely believe that Kiev is winning the conflict, he added. “It’s embarrassing to be from a place that has been lied to at scale and believed the lies so thoroughly.”

Read more …

“..the territorial gains of Ukraine’s much vaunted counteroffensive have been so miniscule, they are barely visible on a map.”

• No, Biden Can’t Wage Forever War in Ukraine (Sp.)

The US mainstream media has hinted at the possibility of a new Ukraine counteroffensive next year. Reportedly, Biden administration officials are privately bracing for a “war of attrition” that will last well into next year. According to The Wall Street Journal, “military strategists and policymakers across the West are already starting to think about next year’s spring offensive” while preparing for a protracted conflict. Having analyzed the publications, one DC-based think tank, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, has raised the question whether the White House is going to unleash a new “forever war” in Ukraine. “I do not believe the US and NATO have sufficient weapons and ammunitions to help Ukraine fight Russia until next spring and beyond,” David T. Pyne, an EMP Task Force scholar and former US Department of Defense officer, told Sputnik.

“Credible US media reports earlier this year stated that the Biden administration had informed the Ukrainian government that it lacked the ability to support Ukraine militarily at a high rate past summer 2023. There is nothing that has been done to increase US munitions or weapons production since those reports came out that would allow the US to arm the Ukrainian military to enable it to fight Russia at the same intensity level beyond that timeframe. The main problem is munitions, specifically heavy artillery shells. This increasing artillery shell shortage will only serve to increase Russian superiority over Ukraine in terms of missiles, rockets, and artillery systems if the war continues beyond September.” The provision of more NATO-grade conventional weapons won’t become a “magic bullet” for Ukraine, either, according to the military analyst.

Pyne takes the reports about planned deliveries of General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons to Kiev and training of Ukrainian pilots undertaken by the US and its NATO allies with a pinch of salt. He believes that the provision of 50-60 early-model F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine is unlikely to make much of a difference in the course of the conflict. “Russia has over fifteen times more fighter aircraft than Ukraine has right now so these additional fighters will not serve to meaningfully diminish Russian air superiority over Ukraine,” Pyne said. “Furthermore, it will take five to eight months to train Ukrainian pilots to fly these F-16 after they have completed English language training, meaning they will not likely see combat until early 2024 at the earliest.”

The military expert noted that US advocates of further weapons supplies to Kiev have been insisting since April 2022 that “if the West just provides with a limited number of additional major weapon systems, then somehow that will enable Ukraine to force Russian troops back to Russia’s pre-2014 borders.” However, all those predictions have proven wrong. “The reality is that there is no conventional weapon system that NATO could provide to Ukraine that would serve as a ‘game changer’ to enable it to defeat Russia which has over five times as many tanks, combat aircraft and artillery systems than Ukraine has. Russia also has 300,000 reserve troops bordering on Kharkov oblast which could be used for a major offensive to surround tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops in southeast Ukraine to force Ukraine to admit defeat and accept a ceasefire and armistice agreement on Russian terms,” Pyne stressed.

What’s more, the Biden administration is going to have a difficult time getting additional aid approved by Congress, according to the former Pentagon officer. “America First conservative Republicans wield substantial influence in the US House of Representatives, and they are very much averse to providing Ukraine with additional assistance of any kind, let alone another $13 billion in direct military assistance. Furthermore, even pro-war congressional Republicans are reportedly questioning the wisdom of providing additional military assistance to Ukraine since the territorial gains of Ukraine’s much vaunted counteroffensive have been so miniscule, they are barely visible on a map.”

Read more …

”TikTok has over 150 million American users spending 90 minutes or more on the platform..”

• Biden Administration Sought Control Over TikTok (RT)

The Biden administration sought to gain control over nearly every aspect of the inner workings of social media behemoth TikTok as part of negotiations allowing its continued operation in the US, according to a draft agreement obtained by Forbes last week. The agreement, which runs to nearly 100 pages, would reportedly give the White House a level of control over the Chinese-owned platform even greater than that which it was found last year to be exercising over US-based competitors like Facebook and Twitter, allowing government officials to not only monitor and influence the conversation on the platform but also to interfere in the day-to-day operations of TikTok in the US.

Government agencies like the Department of Justice and Department of Defense would have full authority to examine TikTok’s servers, equipment, records, facilities, and other properties, according to the draft. They could also block changes to the app’s US terms of service, privacy policy, and moderation policies and veto the hiring of any individual involved in data security for the US. The agreement would also force TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to submit to outside audits, assessments, code inspections, and cybersecurity checks by supposedly independent entities chosen by the US government. The company would be required to foot the bill for these intrusions.

The platform’s US staff could even have been required to exclude ByteDance’s executives from security-related decisions, instead deferring to an executive security committee whose actions would also be concealed from ByteDance. This committee’s primary responsibility would be maintaining US national security first and TikTok’s profitability second. The draft seen by Forbes, dated last summer, is the product of months of exchanges between ByteDance and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which oversees foreign involvement in business deals that could potentially impact national security and has been investigating ByteDance for four years. TikTok has repeatedly been threatened with a blanket ban or forced sale of its US assets to an American competitor as both President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump claimed the platform is used by Beijing for information warfare.

CFIUS renewed the call for a ban or sale in March after the DOJ launched an investigation into ByteDance employees using TikTok to spy on American journalists. A spokesperson for ByteDance confirmed the surveillance but attributed it to rogue employees who have since been fired. TikTok has over 150 million American users spending 90 minutes or more on the platform. While the company pledged in 2021 to isolate US user data on servers owned by tech giant Oracle to assuage spying concerns, Biden prohibited its use by federal employees in December and dozens of state and city governments have followed suit.

Read more …

“He went so far as to declare that it was in fact Russia who militarized Ukraine by launching the invasion..”

• Prigozhin, Putin, and What Next? (VandenHeuvel)

A Russian friend texted me soon after learning that the head of Wagner private military company (PMC), Yevgeny Prigozhin, had been killed in a private plane crash, midway between Moscow and his native city of St. Petersburg. My friend had just seen the New York Post headline, “Russian dissident Prigozhin reported dead after a plane crash outside Moscow.” My friend, a longtime independent editor whose paper has published—and protected—dissidents, was apoplectic. “Dissident!?” Between May 2022 and May 2023, the Russian government paid $1 billion to Wagner for military and other services (including inflated catering prices for poorly paid soldiers). Indeed, Putin has said, “We fully funded this group.” (At the time this went to press, Prigozhin’s death had still not been officially confirmed.) If Prigozhin was not already a household name in Russia following the attempted rebellion that The New York Times says exposed him as Putin’s “biggest threat,” he certainly was after his Embraer private jet crashed.

Prigozhin’s Wagner Group operated in several African countries, including the Central African Republic and Sudan, as well as in Syria as of 2015 and in Ukraine since 2014. It captivated governments and media across the globe and made international headlines after having declared a “March on Moscow” to remove what they decried as the incompetent and corrupt Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. Following Wagner’s seizure of a regional military command, the downing of seven Russian aircraft on their way to Moscow, and Putin’s determined speech accusing the mutineers of treason and vowing punishment, the rebellion was halted in dramatic fashion. The charges leveled against Prigozhin and his supporters were dropped following a still unclear agreement ostensibly mediated by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.

Nevertheless, Prigozhin’s ultimately aborted armed rebellion mesmerized Western audiences who had long believed that Putin’s downfall was just around the corner. The June events followed Wagner’s brutal, yet ultimately successful, tactics in Ukraine–most infamously in the battle of Bakhmut. Although Wagner had initially been seen as subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, Prigozhin increasingly became one of the loudest critics of the Russian invasion from the nationalist right. He demanded more ammunition for his fighters and the intensification of the war effort, and he directly criticized the military leadership–eventually questioning Putin’s justifications for the “special military operation” itself.

During the months-long battle for Bakhmut, commentators had rationalized Prigozhin’s freedom to directly criticize the war’s conduct as due to his being in Russia’s so-called “party of war” camp, which fervently supports the extension of the conflict into a full-scale war. Nevertheless, Prigozhin’s confidence (or desperation) had been visibly increasing in the months prior to the attempted rebellion. He had directly questioned, via his 1,000,000 followers on Telegram, the objectives of the “special military operation,” one of which was to demilitarize Ukraine. Prigozhin remarked how before the full-scale invasion of 2022, Ukraine had “maybe 500 tanks” and “twenty thousand skillful fighters,” but now it had thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of skilled fighters. He went so far as to declare that it was in fact Russia who militarized Ukraine by launching the invasion that caused unprecedented military aid to be delivered by the coalition supporting Kyiv. As Anatol Lieven, of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, points out, Putin initially encouraged Wagner as a “rival force” to the professional army, but this ultimately had “damaging results” for his regime.

Read more …

Demonetized.

• I Just Want To Sell Titty Pictures (ZH)

Sex workers – who frequently face financial discrimination, losing access to payment apps and banking apps such as PayPal, Venmo and CashApp due to their profession – began using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as an alternative for payments, which bypass traditional banking systems and avoid service fees from platforms such as OnlyFans. According to data by the Free Speech Coalition, 2/3 of sex workers have lost access to a bank account or financial service, with 40% having an account closed within the last year, Wired reports. “I just want to sell titty pictures,” said Allie Eve Knox, a professional dominatrix and fetish performer. “I never wanted to be an expert in financial discrimination.” After starting out in sex work in 2014, Knox, like others in the field, has become something of a financial pariah.

The first to ban her were the payment apps—PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp—which prohibit the sale of adult content as policy. But then Knox lost her bank account too. It took a week to recover her money. Nine years on and 30-plus bans later, Knox is jaded: “I don’t want to have to know how to run money to different places. I don’t want to deal with any of this bullshit.” -Wired. Another sex worker, Allie Rae, an ICU worker by training, began posting on OnlyFans when her husband was placed on work furlough. After a short period of time, she was making nearly $500,000 per month more than her day job – but she says she quickly ran into trouble. After her OnlyFans account was discovered by her employer, she was fired. She also found that realtors shunned her, lenders refused to extend a mortgage and accountants ghosted her.

Rae eventually established a corporation to run her business through, however no major bank would open a business account. “Left and right, it’s been a struggle,” she told the outlet. “I was very naive—I didn’t understand the magnitude of the discrimination.” In short, in a world that embraces the gig economy, where YouTubers and Instagram influencers can become millionaires, sex workers have found themselves in a peculiar form of exile. Given the systemic discrimination throughout the banking sector, many sex workers have turned to cryptocurrencies as a means of both storing wealth and accepting payment. For a while, things were great. Digital currencies allowed customers to pay discreetly without supplying personal information, while sex workers now had a way to bypass the banking system entirely.

Knox, for example, began accepting crypto in 2014 – holding up a QR code through which viewers could tip her in crypto. Another sex worker, former escort-turned-porn star Lira Roux, told the outlet that she began to accept crypto in 2015 at the request of clients. Initially, she would exchange the crypto for dollars, however when new laws came into effect – after which many adult-friendly advertising sites were barred from accepting regular money – she began to pay for ads with crypto too. “By and large, crypto is useful for people that aren’t being taken care of properly by the government,” Roux said. “For sex workers, who aren’t well-served by banks, it becomes a useful option.”

Now, thanks to regulatory scrutiny which has gone into overdrive since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, sex workers are ‘bumping up’ against limitations – and are finding that ‘decentralized’ crypto is no more detached from the banking system than traditional currency – as sex workers are finding it increasingly difficult to convert crypto into dollars. Typically, this is done via an exchange, which then allows one to withdraw to a traditional bank account. Sex workers are now being banned from crypto exchanges. “You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” said Knox. “You quickly [run out of exchanges], so you sit on a lot of useless money. The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant’ thing is a bunch of bullshit.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Handpan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1695363907282444337

 

 

Polly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1695439851510706578

 

 

 

 

Frederik

 

 

Roar

 

 

Puppies- so cute….
https://twitter.com/i/status/1695328439937429802

 

 


The saiga antelope is a critically endangered antelope that originally inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe zone

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 21 2023

Apr 212023
 
 April 21, 2023  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Pierre-Auguste Renoir Dance at Bougival 1883

 

• Dollar Finished – America in Danger – Charles Nenner (USAW)
• NATO Chief: Ukraine’s ‘Rightful Place’ Is In The Alliance (AP)
• British Depleted Uranium A ‘Terrible Thing’ For Ukraine – Ambassador (RT)
• EU ‘Done’ With Russia Sanctions – Official (RT)
• Europe is American Pawn – Türkiye (RT)
• People In New Regions Fought For Many Years To Be Part Of Russia – Putin (TASS)
• Whither Multipolarity in a Changing World Order (CP)
• Blinken Played Central Role In Covering Up Hunter Biden Laptop Story (SAC)
• The Digital Euro Could Usher In Total State Control (Glavinic)
• Western Media Suddenly Hates Twitter’s ‘Government-funded’ Labels (Marsden)
• “Why Does Brussels Hate Us?” Livid EU Farmers Hit Back At Green Agenda (ZH)
• TikTok: Chinese “Trojan Horse” Is Run By US State Department Officials (MPN)
• CDC Director Rewrites History Of Covid Vaccines (JTN)
• Twitter Files: Dr. Anthony Fauci “Lied Under Oath” (ZH)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK jr CIA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1648841214521663491

 

 

 

 

Hrnaffnson

 

 

 

 

Tucker My Pillow

 

 

 

 

Mahbubani

 

 

 

 

“Nenner is predicting “30% of the people on Earth will die in the next war cycle. . . . We are like at the end of civilization of the United States.”

• Dollar Finished – America in Danger – Charles Nenner (USAW)

Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has been warning his war cycles are going up. Nenner also predicted a few years back that, at some point, the U.S. dollar cycle would be headed down—way down. The future is here, and Nenner explains, “We have known each other for many years, and I said the dollar is going to hold up, but not anymore, not anymore. It is really in trouble. There is actually no reason to be in the dollar. They especially underestimate this BRICS situation, and all the countries will be forming an anti-dollar. . . . Saudi Arabia is coming onboard, and that means the end of the dollar as the reserve currency.” Nenner says his cycles see, “The dollar going down to 70 on the dollar index.” It’s a bit over 100 now, but it gets worse.

Nenner points out, “I don’t want people to get depressed, but I am really worried. If the U.S. does not rule the world any more. . . . They think they can still tell the world what to do. Physically, the Americans are in danger, and they don’t seem to understand that. . . . The economy is really going to suffer. If the dollar goes really low, we could have a small bounce in the economy because it’s good for exports. That’s just a fooling bounce for people. Longer term, it’s just finished.” Nenner says the signs are clear in the cycle that “America is at the end of empire. . . . The United States is going backwards, and it is not number one anymore.” On the war cycle, Nenner has been forecasting a huge loss of life coming. Nenner is predicting “30% of the people on Earth will die in the next war cycle. . . . We are like at the end of civilization of the United States.

It’s not that we are all going to drop dead, but it’s the end of civilization. The same issues that finished other countries like bad education, too many outstanding loans and people will become too lazy to really do hard work. That usually means the end of an empire.” Nenner also talks about the top in the real estate market and why commercial and residential are on their way down for a long time. Nenner also talks about a “coming Great Depression style crash” in the no-so-distant future. Nenner also brought up that big banks are contacting him to consult on buying physical gold because “they want to survive what is coming.” Nenner says big banks are building their own vaults to make sure governments do not confiscate their yellow metal. Nenner gives a sign to look for when the economy is going into a recession that has a 100% track record.

Finally, Nenner predicts, “We are going to have a bad dollar. That usually means people are going to dump their securities. . . . If you have China and Russia dumping their U.S. bonds, you are going to have a problem. What I see on my cycle is . . . . The rates that went up stop in June. . . . I am getting very worried because there might be a run for safety.” Nenner is worried about war, and not just in Ukraine. Nenner is looking at war in Taiwan, South Korea, and the Middle East with Iran. Nenner says, “I think you could have all these wars at the same time. . . . It’s endless possibilities. . . . I think they will all act at the same time. Wouldn’t you? You are waiting for the right moment, and if the United states get weaker and busy. . . . That’s the time to do whatever you want.”Nenner points out, “Warren Buffett sold most of his Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing shares last week.”

Read more …

This is a declaration of war.

• NATO Chief: Ukraine’s ‘Rightful Place’ Is In The Alliance (AP)

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg defiantly declared Thursday that Ukraine’s “rightful place” is in the military alliance and pledged more support for the country on his first visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion just over a year ago. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Stoltenberg, who has been instrumental in marshaling support from NATO members, to push for even more from them, including warplanes, artillery and armored equipment. The Kremlin has given various justifications for going to war, but repeated Thursday that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO is still a key goal of its invasion, arguing that Kyiv’s membership in the alliance would pose an existential threat to Russia.

NATO leaders said in 2008 that Ukraine would join the alliance one day, and Stoltenberg has repeated that promise throughout the war, though the organization has established no pathway or timetable for membership. “Let me be clear, Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family,” Stoltenberg told a news conference. “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.” Zelenskyy said he was grateful for an invitation to a NATO summit in July in Vilnius, Lithuania, but said his country needs a roadmap for becoming a member. “The time has come for the (alliance’s) leaders to define the prospects of Ukraine’s acquisition of NATO membership, to define the algorithm of Ukraine’s movement towards this goal, and to define security guarantees for our state for the period of such movement — that is, for the period before NATO membership,” he said.

Stoltenberg said he and Zelenskyy discussed a NATO support program for Ukraine. “This will help you transition from Soviet-era equipment and doctrines to NATO standards and ensure full interoperability with the alliance,” Stoltenberg said. “NATO stands with you today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes.” He noted an announcement Thursday by Denmark and the Netherlands that they plan to provide Ukraine with at least another 14 refurbished Leopard 2 battle tanks by early 2024. He added that he expected countries to “make new announcements of concrete military support to Ukraine” at a meeting Friday in Germany.

Read more …

“That such a prominent paper as the Times found itself under “serious pressure” to remove the article shows the extent of censorship in the UK..”

• British Depleted Uranium A ‘Terrible Thing’ For Ukraine – Ambassador (RT)

London’s decision to supply Kiev with depleted uranium (DU) ammunition will hurt the Ukrainian people the most, as they will have to live with the consequences of the toxic metal for generations, Andrey Kelin, the Russian ambassador to the UK, told RT on Wednesday. In addition to sending Ukraine main battle tanks, the British government has promised to deliver armor-penetrating ammunition made with DU, and has already trained some Ukrainian troops in its use. Ambassador Kelin told RT that he will “continue to explain” the harmful effects of the ammunition, including the drastic increase in cancer rates, birth defects, and the contamination of the water and the soil “for at least six generations.” “This is a terrible thing, and if it happens in Ukraine, it will be big trouble, for the agriculture and for the people that are living over there,” Kelin told RT. He admitted there is little chance that London will change its mind, because that would mean admitting a mistake.

Kelin made headlines recently when The Sunday Times published an extensive interview with him, only to quietly delete it several days later, without an explanation. The Russian Embassy subsequently published a copy of the article in full, to protest the censorship. “I have very controversial experience with dealing with British journalists,” the ambassador told RT, noting that sometimes they are “very aggressive” and ask loaded questions. The Times sent “a very experienced political observer”who spoke with him for an hour, and produced an article “reflecting in fact what I have said, without distortions or phrases taken out of context.” That such a prominent paper as the Times found itself under “serious pressure” to remove the article shows the extent of censorship in the UK, Kelin said.

Relations between Russia and the UK were dismantled by London, and Moscow intends to wait for the British to come to their senses before attempting to rebuild them. Normalization of contacts “is not an issue for today or tomorrow,”Kelin told RT, but for some point in the future. Anglo-Russian relations go back 450 years, he noted, and the full disruption “happens only when two countries are in a state of war.”This is not yet the case, even though the UK is getting more involved in the Ukraine conflict by the day “So far we haven’t seen any revelations of common sense on the part of official London,” Kelin said. However, even the British authorities recognize that it is important to maintain channels of communication, so the embassy’s work continues.

Read more …

“..Putin has likened the bloc’s attempts to cut itself off from Russian fossil fuels to economic “suicide.”

• EU ‘Done’ With Russia Sanctions – Official (RT)

The European Union has exhausted its options for further economic restrictions against Russia, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing EU officials. The bloc has so far adopted ten rounds of sanctions in response to the Ukraine conflict and is currently working on an eleventh package of punitive measures against Moscow. Meetings between the European Commission and member state officials to informally discuss new actions will start on Friday, FT wrote. Officials working on further sanctions told the outlet that they are likely to be limited to expanding the list of individuals subject to asset freezes and travel bans, as well as steps to scale up existing measures by closing loopholes.

Most officials reportedly admitted that those parts of the Russian economy that were left unsanctioned are parts that one or more EU member states “can’t live without,” and thus measures targeting them would be vetoed. “We are done,” one of the officials told FT, adding: “If we do more sanctions, there will be more exemptions than measures.” New restrictions could reportedly target Russia’s nuclear fuel and services exports, but those would be opposed by some member-states, such as France, Hungary, and others. Sweeping EU sanctions have targeted various sectors of the Russian economy as well as individuals and entities. According to FT, almost 1,500 people and more than 200 entities are currently subject to asset freezes and travel bans.

The report indicated that the bloc’s restrictive measures have banned bilateral trade flows worth more than €135 billion ($148 billion), including energy imports from Russia, as well as exports of technology, machinery, and electronic goods. Some €21.5 billion worth of assets belonging to sanctioned individuals and entities has been frozen, alongside €300 billion of Russian central bank reserves. Many economists and politicians, however, have argued that the embargos harm the West more than Moscow. Hungarian President Viktor Orban has repeatedly called for “the failed policy of Brussels” to be changed, noting that the sanctions “didn’t fulfill the hopes that were pinned on them,” while Europe is “slowly bleeding.” Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has likened the bloc’s attempts to cut itself off from Russian fossil fuels to economic “suicide.”

Read more …

Soylu is campaigning for Erdogan.

• Europe is American Pawn – Türkiye (RT)

Europe’s influence is waning and it is nothing but a “pawn” of the US, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has claimed. The official delivered the remarks as he met members of a youth association in Istanbul on Tuesday. Soylu argued that European leaders are becoming more and more discredited, while the continent is facing numerous issues, ranging from an aging population to dwindling economic output. He also alleged that Europe lost any international clout long ago, and has become nothing more than an American pawn. Known as an outspoken critic of Washington, Soylu asserted that the US itself continues to lose credibility. Washington is universally “hated” all around the globe, while Europe is facing a similar attitude – largely due to its subordination, according the minister. Europe is now particularly “hated” all across Africa, as local nations justifiably despise those who exploit them, Soylu claimed.

Ahead of a general election in Türkiye scheduled for May 14, the minister also criticized the Western model of democracy, insisting it has been damaged by ongoing turmoil in numerous Western countries. Soylu specifically pointed to political upheaval in the UK, which saw three prime ministers in quick succession last year. “We’re seeing that the [democracy] paint of Europe and America has peeled off,” Soylu stated. The dominance of the collective West no longer exists, yet the US and Europe are still trying to persist with old habits, Soylu claimed, before praising Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to secure “full independence” for his country.

“What our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is doing is to turn the history of the world,” the minister asserted. “Türkiye’s biggest goal is full independence, and Türkiye will reach that goal together with Erdogan.” Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003, first as prime minister and later as president from 2014,is seeking to secure a third term in May’s elections. He is opposed by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who was selected by a broad alliance of six opposition parties. The incumbent president and his ruling AK Party are expected to face a stern challenge, particularly in the wake of the devastating earthquake that killed over 50,000 people across Türkiye’s in early February.

Read more …

“They are an example of loyalty to the Motherland and its interests and are now defending our historical territories..”

• People In New Regions Fought For Many Years To Be Part Of Russia – Putin (TASS)

People in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have fought for many years for the right to be a part of Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. People in the new territories “have fought for many years for the right to be with Russia,” he said at a meeting of the Local Self-Government Council. “For many years they have lived in absolutely different conditions of regional and municipal government, which are not like the conditions in Russia,” he went on to say.


The president said municipal officials working in the new territories should be treated with warmth and consideration and provided with “all the necessary assistance for the integration of the new regions into the unified system of Russia’s public government.” Putin also said “there are many volunteers among the municipal community, who decided for themselves to be there (in the area of the special military operation – TASS), where things are tough.” “They are an example of loyalty to the Motherland and its interests and are now defending our historical territories, protecting people in these territories,” the president continued.

Read more …

“The US juggernaut is lurching to war. Once pivoted to Asia, it does not appear to be equipped with a steering wheel, let alone brakes.”

• Whither Multipolarity in a Changing World Order (CP)

A majority of the world’s population has remained neutral in the Ukraine conflict, despite strong US/western pressure. A host of non-western-aligned economies are making tentative steps to transacting commerce in currencies other than dollars, pounds, yens, or euros. A so-called Pink Tide in Latin America has replaced a number of conservative regimes. China is emerging not only as an economic power, but diplomatically has helped broker closer relations between traditional adversaries Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as floated a peace proposal for Ukraine. All these favorable developments foreshadow a change in the geopolitical climate. The vision of a multipolar world informs the progressive impulse for a better world. Such a world is possible only if the centrality of US imperialism is replaced by a new order.

Such a reordering is a necessary pre-condition for a better world. Currently a realignment is being led by major counter-hegemonic powers such as China and Russia and more regional powers such as Brazil and Iran (and before its dismembering by Libya in Africa). Multipolarity is not the ultimate goal, but it is an intermediary step in the struggle against imperialism. More than just a reshuffling of the deck of world power relationships is needed. Overarching the interregnum is the specter of US preparations for a war with China, perhaps as soon as the turn of this decade. The quasi-governmental RAND Corporation prepared the strategic planning document, War with China – Thinking the Unthinkable, commissioned by the US Army. Released in 2016, such a confrontation does not appear so unthinkable today. Even some mainstream sources recognize that the Ukraine conflict is but a prelude to war with China.

The US juggernaut is lurching to war. Once pivoted to Asia, it does not appear to be equipped with a steering wheel, let alone brakes. Opposition to such a confrontation is virtually absent at the elite level. Both parties of capital compete with each other over which can be more Sinophobic. The Democrats, in particular, used to have dissenting voices, but now have embraced neo-conservatism. They exhibit an imperialist unity that is the envy of the Tea Party Republicans. Meanwhile, a mass peace movement is AWOL. Oddly, the libertarian right is sounding more like peaceniks than some putative liberals who are shrieking “Slava Ukraini.” War with China is not inevitable; China could be blackmailed into accommodation. The US, meanwhile, is crazy enough to precipitate a nuclear apocalypse. Remember that just two days after Hiroshima came the capricious genocide of Nagasaki.

Read more …

Sue them all. Start with the 51 former intelligence officials, then work your way up.

• Blinken Played Central Role In Covering Up Hunter Biden Laptop Story (SAC)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is being investigated by the Committee on the Judiciary and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for his prominent role in persuading 51 former intelligence officials to falsely discredit the “New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as supposed Russian disinformation” during the 2020 Presidential election. The intelligence assessment led to a nearly blanket censorship of investigative stories exposing the alleged corruption of President Joe Biden and his family and kept the truth hidden from the American people before the election, according to a letter released Thursday night by the committees and obtained by SaraACarter.com. During the campaign, Blinken was a senior campaign advisor to then former Vice President Joe Biden and recruited the direct assistance of then former Deputy Director of the CIA Michael Morell, who was one of the 51 signatories of the public statement.

Biden used this false letter signed by former senior intelligence officials, including five former heads of the CIA, from both parties, on October 22, 2020 to disparage President Donald Trump During the final presidential debate. Biden used the intelligence assessment that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation against President Trump during the campaign. Despite legitimate calls by Trump to have the FBI investigate Biden’s deeply concerning family business ties with China and Ukraine, as well as other allegations contained in the laptop that did belong to his son Hunter Biden, the Biden campaign used its connections within the intelligence apparatus to cover up the evidence, the truth and keep it from the American people. Biden used the assessment signed by the intelligence officials to target Trump during the campaign’s last debate.

“They have said this has all the characteristics—four—five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani,” said Biden during the debate and reiterated in Jordan’s letter to Blinken. The committees letter was sent to Blinken on Thursday and it contains transcribed parts of a recent interview the lawmakers had with Morell. [..] Former CIA chief Morell stated during his testimony to the lawmakers that he worked with Blinken in the hopes that then Vice President Biden would be elected to the presidency and not former President Trump.

“The Biden campaign and Anthony Blinken put together the bogus Hunter Biden letter and then used it during debates to ‘prove’ that the Hunter Biden story was fake. Have American voters ever been more blatantly lied to?” stated the Senior GOP Aide. The transcribed interview with Morell is stunning. According to sources who spoke with this reporter, Morell frequently had spoken both publicly and privately against former President Trump and according to one source, “his actions don’t surprise me in the least. It’s disgusting how someone of his stature and Blinken’s have trashed the American people and the Constitution.”

Read more …

“The authorities can and will collect information about anyone who sends money to your wallet, who you send money to, how much money you spend, when you spend it, where you spend it, and on what.”

• The Digital Euro Could Usher In Total State Control (Glavinic)

I recently heard one of the most bizarre remarks by European Central Bank (ECB) chief Christine Lagarde that gave me migraines. She said that the eurozone could not go bankrupt, that this is technically impossible because the ECB can provide unlimited liquidity at any time. In plain English, when we run out of money, we print what we need. I admit I am probably a bit oversensitive. Counterfeiting is the very basis of our financial system, and the fact that the money we have right now is losing more and more purchasing power due to newly printed money need not concern me because I have none anyway. CBDC stands for “Central Bank Digital Currency.” PR consultants and journalists prefer to use the term “digital euro,” which is easier to remember and sounds nicer, but the trivialization of the term does not change the fact that behind all of this, total surveillance awaits.

The ECB’s planned digital euro works like Bitcoin on the basis of blockchain technology, but with a few key differences. Provided you have some, you can protect your money from inflation by holding it in the form of Bitcoin, you just need to have some tolerance for volatility. The Bitcoin blockchain is public and resistant to censorship because it is managed in a decentralized manner by a worldwide network of tens of thousands of computers, with no need for a central authority. Thus, unlike the fiat system, the amount in circulation cannot be increased by command. Bitcoin is transparent because every transaction is recorded in the public blockchain and can be viewed by anyone on the network. At the same time, the anonymity of the sender and receiver is preserved, as transactions are only tied to public addresses, not to individuals.

In contrast, the blockchain on which the digital euro is based is not public and is managed centrally. All transactions go through the European Central Bank (ECB) network, which means there is no transparency whatsoever. Already, no one really knows how many euros are in circulation because they can be printed at will by the ECB. The digital euro will not change this. Since almost all transactions already take place digitally, the question arises as to what benefit a euro on a private, centrally managed blockchain will have for the population. It is unclear who will benefit from the digital euro at all. Well, if you think about it a bit, it’s not so unclear anymore.

In the future, each of us will have a personally assigned account with the central bank. Every transaction can be tracked by the central bank and its associated authorities. The authorities can and will collect information about anyone who sends money to your wallet, who you send money to, how much money you spend, when you spend it, where you spend it, and on what. The authorities will know how often you go to the hairdresser, whether you have a subscription to the gym, whether you like to eat bananas, and how much money you spend on cat food.

Read more …

“The Western media outlets object to these tags being applied to them because they’ve long accepted the negative connotation that such tags carry..”

• Western Media Suddenly Hates Twitter’s ‘Government-funded’ Labels (Marsden)

Recently, some media outlets have quit Twitter over what they see as unjust labeling, which leads to the question – where was their outrage when the same rules were being applied to their competition? Where was the Western fury when the social media platform was slapping labels of state affiliation or funding on media linked to Russia and China, like RT? Nowhere to be found. How about when the platform was extending that same labeling to individual journalists contributing to those platforms? Again, silent. It’s only now that they can’t object strongly enough. So what changed? The platform’s ‘newish’ owner, Elon Musk, woke up one morning recently and decided to level the playing field by slapping Western media recipients of state funding with the “government funded” label.

Britain’s BBC has protested its tagging, America’s National Public Radio rage-quit the platform over its new designation, and Canada’s CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) suspended posting. “Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work they do to allow our independence to be falsely described in this way,” CBC spokesman Leon Mar said. The Western media outlets object to these tags being applied to them because they’ve long accepted the negative connotation that such tags carry when they are exclusively applied to media or journalists linked to Russia or China. They didn’t care that the integrity of those journalistic competitors was smeared by a scarlet letter. They didn’t appreciate or support the coverage offered by those labeled platforms that offer alternative information and analysis to the mainstream Western establishment agenda and related narratives.

It apparently never occurred to the Western press – even to the CBC, which received $1.24 billion in 2021-2022 from the Canadian federal government – that they could be next in line for this kind of labeling. At least not enough for them to stand up against such labels. Why? A likely explanation is that they felt that social media platforms like Twitter would always fall in line with the Western establishment agenda and narrative. Also, that it was just an extension of the ongoing efforts to marginalize geopolitical competitors and alternative sources of information that might challenge them. Labeling of Western media makes no sense in that context, so they likely presumed that they were safe. However, Musk came along and opened Pandora’s Box, with Western media now haggling with him over precisely how much funding they ought to be able to get from the state without being slapped with a “state-affiliated” moniker. “Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they’re ‘less than 70% government funded,’ so we corrected the label,” Musk tweeted, stating that he had amended CBC’s label to “69% Government-funded media.”

Musk has also managed to make Western politicians denounce the tags, which they previously supported when it was used against press sources that they didn’t like. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hysterically played the class warfare card in defense of the CBC, accusing Conservative Party opposition leader Pierre Poilievre of cozying up to US billionaires (an obvious reference to Musk). Poilievre had written a letter to Twitter drawing attention to the fact that the CBC shouldn’t be left out of the labeling spree.

Read more …

“After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU almost immediately unveiled ‘Farm to Fork’ pollution targets..”

• “Why Does Brussels Hate Us?” Livid EU Farmers Hit Back At Green Agenda (ZH)

European farmers are furious over a bullshit plan by the European Union which would force then to be treated as industrial plants, similar to steel mills or chemical works, in order to force them to cut greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution, the Financial Times reports Greek farmer Takis Kazanas, 66, and his four sons run a 230-acre ranch with 300 cattle ranch in the mountains overlooking the Thessalian Plain. While the farmers already capture biogas from cow dung, and use homemade manure vs. chemical fertilizer, Kazanas is one of many farmers up in arms over environmentalist bureaucrats who want to impose crippling new rules on them in order to cut emissions by 55% by 2030 vs. 1990 levels. “That’s what the EU says and that’s what I do,” says Kazanas, regarding the ‘earth-friendly’ measures he already employs. “Today, everyone blames cattle for methane production and pollution . . . I have a different opinion.”

“The sheer scale of the transformation that the European Commission is asking for in its Farm to Fork strategy — halving the amount of pesticides applied by 2030, cutting the use of fertilisers, doubling organic production and rewilding some farmland — would be remarkable even in less urgent times. Yet it comes as the war in Ukraine has upended global food markets, and as farmers face a cut in subsidies in the Common Agricultural Policy, the €55bn-a-year programme that has underwritten Europe’s food security since 1962. The EU argues that the agriculture sector is badly in need of environmental reforms. One senior EU official working on climate policy calls it “our problem child”. -FT According to Brussels, nitrous oxides found in fertilizer, as well as animal urine and poop, are a large part of the problem.

One problem facing farmers is thin margins between organic producers who survive on local trade, to pig farmers whose profits are being whittled away by international competition. As the Times notes, “even a small increase in the price of feed can wipe out annual profits.” After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU almost immediately unveiled ‘Farm to Fork’ pollution targets. According to a senior commission official, “the debate has changed.” The goals of the program, via FT, are to: • Cut the use of chemical and hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030 • Reduce fertiliser use by 20% by 2030 • Lower by 50% the sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture • Increase the amount of land devoted to organic farming to 25% in 2030 from 9.1% in 2020 • Bigger livestock farms to comply with clean air and water regulations that apply to heavy industry That said, farmers have banded together – and thanks to organized, well-funded campaigns, EU governments have softened their tone over what is becoming a new battleground over green ambitions.

Read more …

They’re everywhere.

• TikTok: Chinese “Trojan Horse” Is Run By US State Department Officials (MPN)

For quite some time, TikTok has been recruiting former State Department officials to run its operations. The company’s head of data public policy for Europe, for example, is Jade Nester. Before being recruited for that influential role, Nester was a senior official in Washington, serving for four years as the State Department’s director of Internet public policy. Mariola Janik, meanwhile, left a long and fruitful career in the government to work for TikTok. Starting out at the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Janik became a career diplomat in the State Department before moving to the Department of Homeland Security. In September, however, she left the government to immediately take up the position of TikTok’s trust and safety program manager, a job that will inevitably include removing content and reshaping algorithms.

While there is no suggestion that Janik is anything other than a model employee, the fact that a U.S. government agent walked into such an influential position at the social media giant should be cause for concern. If, for instance, a high Chinese official was hired to influence what the U.S. public saw in their social media feeds, it would likely be the centerpiece of the TikTok furor currently gripping Washington. Janik is not the only former security official working on TikTok’s trust and safety team, however. Between 2008 and 2021, Christian Cardona enjoyed a distinguished career at the State Department, serving in Poland, Turkey and Oman, and was in the thick of U.S. interventionism in the Middle East. Between 2012 and 2013, he was an assistant to the U.S. ambassador in Kabul. He later left that role to become the political and military affairs manager for Iran.

In the summer of 2021, he went straight from his top State Department job to become product policy manager for trust and safety at TikTok, a position that, on paper, he appears completely unqualified for. Earlier this year, Cardona left the company. Another influential individual at TikTok is recruiting coordinator Katrina Villacisneros. Yet before she was choosing whom the company hires, Villacisneros worked at the State Department’s Office of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. And until 2021, she was part of Army Cyber Command, the U.S. military unit that oversees cyberattacks and information warfare online. Other TikTok employees with long histories in the U.S. national security state include: Brad Earman, global lead of criminal and civil investigations, who spent 21 years as a special agent in the Air Force Office of Special Investigation and also worked as a program manager for antiterrorism at the State Department; and Ryan Walsh, escalations management lead for trust and safety at TikTok, who, until 2020, was the government’s senior advisor for digital strategy. A central part of Walsh’s State Department job, his own résumé notes, was “advanc[ing] supportive narratives” for the U.S. and NATO online.

Read more …

Twist: the vaccines were great, but the virus evolved. Don’t mention the injuries and deaths.

• CDC Director Rewrites History Of Covid Vaccines (JTN)

As the feds abandon a one-size-fits-all COVID-19 vaccine strategy in the face of plunging booster uptake, growing research on serious adverse events and the first government payments to victims of the novel therapeutics, the CDC’s director is trying to rewrite history. In a hearing Wednesday, Rochelle Walensky told the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds her agency that COVID vaccines only stopped preventing transmission of the virus due to “an evolution of science,” contradicting her own agency’s uncertainty about the products during the early mass vaccination campaign and its contemporaneous data.

The exchange was prompted by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) reminding Walensky that she told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow March 29, 2021 that CDC data suggest “vaccinated people do not carry the virus” or “get sick,” based on both clinical trials and “real-world data.” Walensky responded that the statement was true at the time, when the “wild-type” virus was dominant, but then revised it by saying “even if they got sick” infected people could not transmit COVID. Because of the “evolution of the virus” that’s no longer true, she told Clyde. Hearing watchers quickly noted the CDC pulled the rug out from Walensky three days after her Maddow interview in a statement to The New York Times. “The evidence isn’t clear” on transmission by “fully vaccinated” people, which is “possible,” the agency said.

Not only did Walensky falsely invoke the vaccine trials, which didn’t test for transmission, but the CDC may have been aware of breakthrough infections when its director denied they were possible. The CDC showed the Times a study that found “the vast majority” — not all — of nearly 4,000 vaccinated people remained uninfected two weeks after vaccination. It set up a breakthrough infection page as early as April 16 that reported about 5,800 cases “so far,” but didn’t tell CNN when it started receiving them. The number crossed 10,000 by month’s end. The FDA threw out a major pillar of its COVID strategy this week in its attempt to “simplify” vaccine recommendations, belatedly joining an international consensus that does not recommend vaccination across ages and risk levels.

It withdrew authorization for the original Pfizer and Moderna two-dose mRNA vaccines and told “most” vaccinated and even unvaccinated people they “may receive” a single bivalent dose. Among those already boosted with a bivalent, only elderly and immunocompromised people for now can get another dose. Unvaccinated children up to age 5 can get a two- or three-dose bivalent, while the number of bivalent doses will depend on monovalent vaccination history for other children, the FDA said. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, cited the high rate of natural and vaccine immunity in the general public in explaining the revision, while still recommending everyone “consider staying current” with bivalent doses.

Read more …

Fauci, on purpose, had no personal Twitter account.

• Twitter Files: Dr. Anthony Fauci “Lied Under Oath” (ZH)

“A lot of people are spouting out a lot of things about me and Twitter,” Fauci told Fox News. “I’ve never had a Twitter account. I don’t intend on having a Twitter account, and I’ve had nothing to do with Twitter. So I don’t know what they’re talking about when they say that.” Fauci made similar claims during an almost 7-hour deposition. While under oath, the then-medical advisor to President Biden denied using Twitter or even paying attention to social media. “I don’t do social media.” “Since I don’t have a Twitter account, I don’t see tweets.” “I’m so dissociated from social media … I’ve never gotten involved in any of that.” “The social media and Twitter, I told you, I don’t have a Twitter account. I don’t tweet. I don’t do Facebook. I don’t do anything.”

Not true according to a new Twitter File uncovered during a visit to Twitter’s San Francisco HQ that shows Anthony Fauci…taking over the White House’s Twitter account. “Dr. Anthony Fauci did an account takeover for @WHCOVIDResponse,” reads a Twitter internal COVID-19 monthly update. Twitter’s monthly update also documented work they did with Johnson and Johnson on “messaging strategy” to help market the pharma company’s COVID-19 vaccine—action that happened only months after Twitter began removing and labeling tweets that they deemed vaccine “misinformation.” By the summer of 2021, Johnson and Johnson began a full court press, marketing multiple pharma products on Twitter. In a separate Twitter File, a senior Twitter attorney, who interfaced with the FBI on enforcement and removal of “disinformation,” praised Fauci to Twitter’s lawyers as America’s “leading trusted voice” on COVID-19.

A peek behind the paywall… “The Louisiana and Missouri attorney generals sued the federal government in May 2022 claiming agencies were colluding with social media companies to “censor and suppress free speech—including truthful information—related to COVID-19, election integrity and other topics under the guise of combating ‘misinformation.’” After a fierce legal battle, Louisiana and Missouri were allowed to depose Anthony Fauci under oath, during which he constantly claimed he could not recall information. The Biden administration has sought to keep the legal proceedings secret. Emails show that when a reporter contacted Fauci to ask why he could not recall key details about his handling of the pandemic during his deposition, Fauci emailed NIH colleagues, “So much for confidentiality.” The states released Fauci’s deposition last December, noting that Fauci said “I don’t recall” 174 times, including when asked about emails that he sent, interviews that he gave, and important documents he was shown.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pandora

 

 


To avoid being heard by sharks (the reptile’s main predator), marine Iguanas can stop their own hearts for up to 45 minutes.

 

 

Bear cat

 

 

Bradbury

 

 

 

 

Dad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1648904958052278272

 

 

Happy and free
https://twitter.com/i/status/1649124922256392211

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 15 2022

Dec 152022
 
 December 15, 2022  Posted by at 9:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  90 Responses »


Saul Leiter Taxi c1957

 

• Why Crimea is Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Greatest Bargaining Chip (G.)
• Germany & the Lies of Empire (Patrick Lawrence)
• No Consensus In EU Over Ukraine Tribunal – Borrell (RT)
• Civilian Death Toll From Ukrainian Attacks On Donbass Revealed (RT)
• Twitter Became the Ministry of Truth (David Stockman)
• Swimming With Sharks (CJ Hopkins)
• Link Between MRNA Vaccine, Heart Inflammation ‘Covered Up’ – British MP (ToI)
• DeSantis Forms Florida Grand Jury To Investigate Covid Vaccine Rollout (ZH)
• The Mother of all Economic Crises (Ron Paul)
• Bankman-Fried Lieutenant Alerted Regulators To Misuse Of Customer Funds (Block)
• Trump Sues Pulitzer Board For Defamation (JTN)
• Senate Unanimously Passes Ban On Using TikTok On Government Devices (JTN)
• How Economic Sanctions in Ancient Greece Backfired, Prolonging War (GR)
• With Elon Owning Twitter Government Only Controls 97% Of The Media (BBee)

 

 

 

 

Laura Ingraham: The left wants Covid amnesty, the right wants answers

 

 

 

 

Collusion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1429459035867291654

 

 

 

 

The color blindness in pieces like this from the Guardian is stunning. Western politicians and their media want their people to think they’re winning. But Crimea is Russian, and can’t be bargained with. It makes no difference what Zelensky says. Or anyone else. The only thing this attitude is good for is to keep the war going.

• Why Crimea is Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Greatest Bargaining Chip (G.)

In a little noticed intervention the former British prime minister Boris Johnson – seen as a bosom ally of Volodymyr Zelenskiy – made the startling statement that if Russian troops were returned to lands they held inside Ukraine before the 24 February invasion that would represent a basis for reopening talks between Ukraine and Russia. The statement implies Ukraine would have to accept that the removal of Russian troops from Crimea would not be a precondition for the start of talks. In proposing this, in a piece last week in the Wall Street Journal, Johnson was making an admission made in private by many diplomats that a militarily enforced return of the Crimean peninsula – which was annexed by Russia in 2014 in a move rejected by the UN – to full Ukrainian control is fraught with risk.

Writing in the Spectator Henry Kissinger, the veteran diplomat, made a similar proposal, arguing Russia should only be required to disgorge territory gained since February this year. Land occupied nearly a decade ago, including Crimea, “could be the subject of a negotiation after a ceasefire”. If that negotiation failed to resolve particularly divisive territories, “internationally supervised referendums concerning self-determination could be applied”. Historically and ethnically Crimea is different from the rest of Ukraine, the argument goes. There are also 30,000 Russian forces dug in with little available Ukrainian amphibious access. Crimea’s retention in some form is so precious to Vladimir Putin that if he felt it were slipping from his grasp some fear he may act on his threat to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, the escalation that terrifies, and holds back, Washington and Europe.

In public Ukraine opposes a ceasefire with Putin retaining any land annexed since 2014. Zelenskiy has said countless times, for example at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore: “A simple ceasefire won’t do the trick. Unless we liberate our whole territory, we will not bring peace.” Zelenskiy has also invested diplomatically in setting up the Crimea Platform, a coordination body to put pressure on the world to keep the illegal occupation of Crimea in its sights. At the August meeting of the Platform the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, said: “Crimea is and was as much a part of Ukraine as Gdansk or Lublin are parts of Poland.” He added: “I think many of us need to do some examination of conscience for what has happened in the last year. Was the de facto consent to the occupation of Crimea a wrong signal from many countries to Russia?”

[..] One Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Volodymyr Havrylov, said Ukrainian forces would be on the peninsula by the end of December. In other pieces of bravado the senior presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak suggested a war crimes tribunal should be staged there on the basis “What started in Crimea must end there”. Petro Poroschenko, the former Ukrainian president, suggested a new Yalta conference could be held there next year, replicating the 1945 summit held to plan the post-second world war order.

Read more …

“By her own account, she was using diplomacy just as Kiev was, to scuttle the accord she pretended to sponsor.”

• Germany & the Lies of Empire (Patrick Lawrence)

[..] how interesting to hear a German citizen object, in effect, that the Federal Republic has betrayed itself and its historical inheritance the very week its former chancellor told Germany’s leading newsmagazine and one of its leading dailies that the fruitful ambiguity of the nation’s past is gone now in favor of the manipulative, Russophobic dishonesty that lies at the heart of the proxy war the U.S. now wages against Russia in Ukraine. As has been widely reported and excellently analyzed — except in the mainstream American press, where Merkel’s remarks last week go unmentioned — the former German leader described her cynical, treacherous betrayal of Moscow during negotiations of the two Minsk Protocols, the first signed in September 2014 and the second the following February.

Berlin, Paris, the post-coup Kiev regime and Moscow were signatories to those accords. How well I recall the earnestness with which Russian President Vladimir Putin entered into the talks. How hopeful many of us were that, with Kiev having swiftly breached Minsk I, the second accord would produce what the Russian president sought — a lasting settlement that would leave Ukraine united and stabilize the security order on Russia’s southwestern border and Europe’s eastern flank. Earlier this year Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s first post-coup president, shocked everybody when he stated publicly that Kiev never had any intention of honoring the commitments it made when it signed the Minsk Protocols:

The talks in the Belarusian capital and all the promises were meant simply to buy time while Ukraine built fortifications in the eastern regions and trained and armed a military strong enough to wage a full-dress war of aggression against the Russian-tilted Donetsk and Lugansk regions. There was never any interest in the federal structure envisioned in Minsk II. There was never any intention of granting the breakaway regions the measure of autonomy Ukraine’s history and its mixed languages, cultures and traditions called for. Committing to all that was a ruse intended to deceive Moscow and the Donbass republics while Ukraine rearmed and shelled the latter in anticipation of the war that broke out in February.

Shocking, O.K. But Poroshenko was a jumped-up candy magnate running the wildly irresponsible, rabidly Russophobic regime that had seized power in Kiev. So: Shocking but also in keeping with the conduct of a corrupt-up-to-the-eyebrows pack of nobodies with no notion or regard for statecraft or responsible governance. It is another matter, to state the very obvious, for Merkel to say the very same things. The former chancellor was supposed to be leading the West’s diplomatic démarche along with François Hollande, France’s president at the time and plainly a junior partner to Europe’s most powerful political figure. By her own account, she was using diplomacy just as Kiev was, to scuttle the accord she pretended to sponsor.

Read more …

“the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy..” What a joke.

• No Consensus In EU Over Ukraine Tribunal – Borrell (RT)

There is still no agreement on setting up a special tribunal to deal with alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, has said. Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday at the EU-NGO forum on human rights, Borrell stated “there’s a polemic about do we need something more than the [International Criminal Court] in order to fight impunity in Ukraine.” He said that “together with the commission” he had presented a proposal to establish a separate body for that purpose. “On Monday, we were discussing about it,” the diplomat remarked, while acknowledging that the consultations ended “without a result.”

Borrell suggested there is still a possibility that a special tribunal for Ukraine will be set up, saying “this is an interesting discussion that, for the time being, has not a concrete answer.” Borrell went on to claim that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are tantamount to the “destruction of a country” and a “war crime.” He said Moscow had deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure in an attempt to carry out the “assassination of millions of people by cold.” The top EU official also accused Russian troops of forced deportations and kidnappings of Ukrainians, including children. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that the West has no legal right to establish courts to investigate and prosecute Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

Russia consistently denies its troops have committed any war crimes, saying its military personnel are doing all they can to minimize civilian casualties. Moscow also insists its aerial bombardments, which have intensified in recent months, target facilities related to Ukraine’s military and defense capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the harsh new tactics came in response to a Ukrainian attack against the Crimean bridge in early October and other “terrorist attacks” perpetrated on Russian soil. Moscow has also accused Kiev’s Western backers of turning a blind eye to evidence of war crimes allegedly committed by Ukrainian troops, including indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Donbass.

Read more …

Ukraine uses western weapons on its own territory, against its own citizens. Yes, things have changed since the September referenda, and the subsequent Russian decision to incorporate the regions. But what else could they do? Putin refused exactly this for 8 years, but was left with no choice.

• Civilian Death Toll From Ukrainian Attacks On Donbass Revealed (RT)

Weapons supplied to Ukraine by NATO countries have allowed Kiev’s military to significantly ramp-up attacks on civilian targets in Donbass, a local watchdog has said. They further claim that over 4,500 civilians have been killed and 4,000 injured since Ukrainian forces escalated shelling in mid-February. “Military terror has escalated beyond all limits after NATO members started supplying weapons to Ukraine,” the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), a monitoring group that tracks attacks on the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, said on Wednesday. “We have recorded a four-fold increase in the number of victims among the civilian population,” Natalya Shutkina, a JCCC representative from Donetsk, said as quoted by TASS.

The JCCC held a press conference on Wednesday during which it showed fragments of Western shells and rockets collected after Ukrainian strikes in Donbass and explained the toll these attacks had taken. Since February 17, 4,527 civilians have been killed, including 154 children, Shutkina stated. Another 4,317 civilians, including 274 children, have been injured, she said, adding that Ukrainian attacks have damaged over 12,000 homes, 128 medical facilities, and 67 sites required for providing basic utilities, such as water and heating. The record-keeping begins in mid-February when the Donbas republics reported a significant escalation of strikes by Kiev in the lead-up to Russia having recognized the DPR and LPR as sovereign states and pledged to defend them.

The two regions have since been incorporated into Russia following referendums in September. Shutkina pointed out that the weapon systems provided by the US and its allies are supposed to be more accurate than the Soviet-era artillery guns and rocket launchers that Ukraine possessed previously. This leads the JCCC to believe that the Ukrainian attacks on civilian facilities have been intentional rather than being part of indiscriminate strikes, she stressed. Darya Morozova, the human rights ombudsman for the Donetsk People’s Republic, urged international organizations to acknowledge Kiev’s actions, arguing that “if the world community didn’t encourage the Ukrainian leadership with its inaction, the war in Donbass would have stopped a long time ago.” She called on Kiev’s sponsors to stop sending heavy weapons to Ukraine.

Read more …

Twitter numbers make no sense. Not if it were a business.

• Twitter Became the Ministry of Truth (David Stockman)

Meanwhile, what was happening back at the ranch in 2020-2021 when the Twitter HQ was being transformed into the Village of the Damned? Well, on the one-hand the company’s stock price was coming up roses. After hitting the skids in 2015-2016, the Twitter’s market cap had risen from $12.5 billion in the fall of 2017 to $27 billion by the fall of 2019 to a peak of $54 billion in July 2021. In short, given a quadrupling of the company’s stock price in just four years and the resultant massive gains in the value of executive stock options, the top echelon apparently felt free to become moonlighting volunteers for the Deep State. That is, doing well they faced no penalty for doing good at the shareholders’ expense.

And we do mean shareholders’ expense. During its 2020 and 2021 fiscal years combined, which encompassed the peak period of the C-suite insanity chronicled by the Twitter Files, the company did harvest $8.8 billion of revenue from the Lockdown-world’s acceleration of the advertising migration from legacy to digital venues. Moreover, collecting those sums only required $3.2 billion in cost of goods sold, resulting in sterling gross profits at $5.6 billion and 64% of sales. In turn, that should have resulted in a shareholder bonanza on the bottom line. Except it didn’t. In fact, the company’s moonlighting management spent far more than that—$6.1 billion—on R&D, sales and marketing, general overhead and other top-side expenses. That is to say, Twitter’s putative business model went bust, with cumulative operating losses of nearly one-half billion dollars during the two year period.

Likewise, its bonifides as a cash-burning machine were reinforced. During 2020-2021 it generated $1.6 billion of cash from operations, but spent nearly $1.9 billion on CapEx. Accordingly, Twitter’s operating free cash flow came in at -$260 million. In short, when the company reached a peak valuation of $54 billion in July 2021 it was bleeding red ink and burning cash. It essentially had an infinite valuation multiple, which absurd valuation, in turn, amounted to a flashing green light for rampant moonlighting by not only its top management, but nearly the entirety of its the 7,500 work force.

In that regard we have been waiting for our Twitter screen to go dark ever since Elon Musk fired the employment rooster back to at least its December 2017 level (3,372). But, alas, the tweets just keep on coming, even as expenses have been pared back to the levels extant when Twitter was valued at the aforementioned 25% of its eventual peak.

Read more …

More good questions. At least we can finally ask them.

• Swimming With Sharks (CJ Hopkins)

So, here’s the other thing that is bothering me (i.e., in addition to how this story is gradually devolving into a “red/blue” slugfest). You saw the news about how James Baker, the FBI guy who worked with the Clinton team on perpetrating the Russiagate hoax and had a hand in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, was “vetting” the Twitter Files before they were released. Well, according to the story, Baker was doing this “vetting” unbeknownst to Elon Musk, who had apparently just accidentally forgotten to fire his Deputy General Counsel (who he had been aware of for at least eight months) when he fired all those other liberal “bad apples,” and so Elon, being totally “in the dark,” as it were, had absolutely no idea what Baker was doing to the Twitter Files until Bari Weiss caught it and brought it to his attention.

That bothers me…as in I do not believe it. I want to be clear about what I’m saying. I’m not questioning Matt’s or Bari Weiss’ motives, or methods, and certainly not their characters. If I were in their positions, I’d be doing the same thing, getting my hands on as many “Twitter files” as possible and reporting the story that is there to report. They are journalists. That is what journalists do. They have also been around the block a few times, so I assume they are aware that they are swimming with sharks. If they weren’t previously, they certainly are now, after this fishy Baker “vetting” business. What I’m saying is, how can we trust what they are getting? How many files were “vetted” by Baker? Why was he still in a position to “vet” them? Who’s “vetting” the files now that Baker has been “exited”?

Which files have been given to Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss and which files have not been given to them? The reporting they are doing is like creating a collage; they can only work with the materials they are given, and the materials they are given will determine the story, or at least limit the nature and scope of the story. Also, and notwithstanding my respect and disturbing affection for Matt Taibbi, neither Matt nor Bari Weiss have been particularly interested in covering the roll-out of the official Covid narrative, i.e., the most insidious propaganda and gaslighting campaign in human history, or the destabilization and radical restructuring of global society that I keep mentioning in this column and have been writing about, extensively, since March of 2020.

Read more …

“..the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is almost entirely (86%) funded by the pharmaceutical industry while research departments also get most of their money from so-called “Big Pharma” too..”

• Link Between MRNA Vaccine, Heart Inflammation ‘Covered Up’ – British MP (ToI)

In a bombshell revelation, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen has demanded the suspension of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, alleging the ‘cover-up’ of research linking mRNA jabs with heart inflammation by prominent health authorities of the British Heart Foundation (BHF). In addition, the British MP claims that the problems related to COVID vaccines are being suppressed due to its financial associations with big pharma giants. MP Andrew Bridgen has said, “It has been brought to my attention by a whistleblower from a very reliable source that one of these institutions is covering up clear data that reveals that the mRNA vaccine increased inflammation of the heart arteries. “They are covering this up in fear that they may lose funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

“The leader of that cardiology research department has a prominent leadership role with the British Heart Foundation and I am very disappointed to say that he has sent out non-disclosure agreements to his research team to ensure that this important data never sees the light of day. “This is an absolute disgrace. Systemic failure in an over-medicated population also contributes to huge waste of British taxpayers’ money and is an increasing strain on the NHS.” Adding to the claims he says that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is almost entirely (86%) funded by the pharmaceutical industry while research departments also get most of their money from so-called “Big Pharma” too. “In effect we have the poacher paying the gamekeeper,” he says.

The MP has been vocal about his opinions about the COVID vaccines. In the past, he has warned against the vaccination of young children, saying that the jabs are still in their experimental stages. Along with his latest allegations, he highlighted research that showed a 25 percent increase in heart attack and cardiac arrest incidences in 16-39 year olds in Israel associated with the first and second doses of vaccine and not linked to SARs-CoV-2 infection. He also notes that since the vaccination rollout, there had been 14,000 additional cardiac arrests in 2021 since 2020.

UK Parliament

Cole Bigtree
https://twitter.com/i/status/1602147160706863104

Read more …

Good.

• DeSantis Forms Florida Grand Jury To Investigate Covid Vaccine Rollout (ZH)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is establishing a grand jury through the state’s supreme court to investigate malfeasance involving the rollout of the covid mRNA vaccines. The investigations will include the claims of vaccine safety by pharmaceutical companies and the CDC, along with the rising number of deadly reactions to the jab including Myocarditis. The announcement was made in a virtual town hall-style meeting and was met with a positive response. DeSantis notes the moral bankruptcy of the scientific establishment in the US during the pandemic lockdowns – With the federal government and many scientists admonishing the public for going outside their homes (even though UV light from the sun is a natural sterilizer), while at the same time supporting the BLM protests in which thousands of people congregated on city streets to riot.


Stopping the spread was not important in the case of BLM, but deadly important when it came to people walking on the beach or protesting the lockdowns. DeSantis has proven to be a consistent opponent of the lockdowns and mandates, despite Florida’s large population. This policy helped to provide proof that the lockdowns were pointless. If Florida (along with other defiant red states) could stay open without any noticeable jump in fatalities compared to blue states, then what was the point of the lockdowns and restrictions? A trend is growing among the American public which runs contrary to the mainstream covid narrative. People are beginning to question the validity of government policies, the claims of snake oil salesmen like Anthony Fauci and the rules enforced by the CDC. Most importantly, they are beginning to apply skepticism to the mRNA vaccines, which is something that should have been done before they were ever distributed.

Bannon Wolf

Read more …

“..interest on the national debt is already on track to consume 40 percent of the federal budget by 2052 (should be 25?)and will surpass defense spending by 2029! ”

• The Mother of all Economic Crises (Ron Paul)

The Fed has been trying to eliminate price inflation with a series of interest rate increases. So far, these rate increases have not significantly reduced price inflation. This is because rates remain at historic lows. Yet the rate increases have had negative economic effects, including a decline in the demand for new homes. Increasing interest rates make it impossible for many middle- and working-class Americans to afford a monthly mortgage payment for even a relatively inexpensive home. The main reason the Fed cannot raise rates to anywhere near what they would be in a free market is the effect it would have on the federal government’s ability to manage its debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), interest on the national debt is already on track to consume 40 percent of the federal budget by 2052 and will surpass defense spending by 2029!

A small interest rate increase can raise yearly federal debt interest rate payments by many billions of dollars, increasing the amount of the federal budget devoted solely to servicing the debt. The federal government’s fiscal picture is made worse by the fact that the Social Security “Trust Fund” will begin to run deficits by 2035 while the Medicare Trust Fund will run deficits by 2028. The looming bankruptcy of the two major entitlement programs, combined with the unwillingness of most in Congress to reduce either welfare or warfare spending, puts the Fed in a bind. If it raises rates to the levels needed to really combat price inflation, the increase in interest payments will impose hardships on individuals and businesses, as well as raise federal interest payments to unsustainable levels.

This will cause a major economic crisis including a government default on its debt causing a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Also, if the Fed continues to facilitate federal deficits by monetizing the debt, the result will be an economic crisis caused by a collapse in the dollar’s value and rejection of the dollar’s world reserve status.

Read more …

Where is SBF’s girlfriend, the Alameda chick?

• Bankman-Fried Lieutenant Alerted Regulators To Misuse Of Customer Funds (Block)

One of Sam Bankman-Fried’s top lieutenants told Bahamian authorities that customer funds from the firm were used to plug holes in the balance sheet of his investment fund, Alameda Research. In a Nov. 9 call with Bahamian regulators, FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame told Bahamas Securities Commission Executive Director Christina R. Rolle that client assets possibly held by FTX were transferred to Alameda Research to cover the hedge fund’s financial losses. The transfer of customer assets was “contrary to normal corporate governance and operations at FTX Digital,” Rolle wrote in a Nov. 11 court document filed to the Supreme Court of the Bahamas, seeking an emergency intervention for the regulator to seize control of the company’s remaining assets.

“Put simply, that such transfers were not allowed or consented to by their clients.” Salame’s comments to the regulator also prompted her to alert the Bahamian police, requesting an investigation into the company, “on an urgent basis.” The request to police notes that Salame was in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 9. The FTX DM co-CEO told officials that only three people had passwords necessary for the transfer: Bankman-Fried, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang. A Monday court filing by FTX’s representatives in bankruptcy proceedings named Bankman-Fried and Wang as responsible for a separate shift in funds, as well as the minting of new tokens, after they had filed to start the bankruptcy process.

Rolle’s request, which was granted by the court, was included in a new filing in the bankruptcy case today made by the Bahamian government in response to arguments in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, suggesting that it is coordinating with Bankman-Fried. Lawyers for FTX, representing the company’s new leadership, have argued that Bankman-Fried, Wang and Bahamian authorities, including the Securities Commission, may have violated bankruptcy law around movement of assets after initiating the process. The Bahamian regulator has vigorously denied coordination with Bankman-Fried, and filed these documents as evidence in support of its argument. The judge presiding over the case will hear further arguments on Friday, with a full hearing on the issue scheduled for Jan. 6.

Read more …

Pulitzer prices have lost all value.

• Trump Sues Pulitzer Board For Defamation (JTN)

Former President Donald Trump filed a defamation suit on Wednesday against the Pulitzer Prize board, pointing to a statement it made backing the reporting of the 2018 winning articles. Trump had requested the board review its decisions to award the 2018 prizes to the New York Times and Washington Post staffs for reporting on the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative. The board honored Trump’s request and conducted the reviews, after which the organization stood by its original choices, saying “no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes,” according to The Hill.

The former president repeatedly threatened to sue the board over its statement, but only filed the suit on Wednesday. He is seeking an unspecified amount in damages. “On the facts known to Defendants at the time these reviews were allegedly conducted, it would have been impossible that a single objective, thorough and independent review would have reached such a conclusion, much less two. Defendants knew this and published the Pulitzer Statement anyway,” the suit reads. “A large swath of Americans had a tremendous misunderstanding of the truth at the time the Times’ and the Post’s propagation of the Russia Collusion Hoax dominated the media. Remarkably, they were rewarded for lying to the American public,” it further reads, per the New York Post.

New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander told The Hill that “[t]he mission and responsibility of The New York Times is to report thoroughly and impartially on matters of newsworthy importance. The foreign manipulation of the 2016 elections was both consequential and unprecedented in United States history. Our journalists thoroughly pursued credible claims, fact-checked, edited and ultimately produced groundbreaking journalism that was proven true time and again.”

Read more …

“The Senate bill comes the same day a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to prohibit the app in the United States entirely..”

• Senate Unanimously Passes Ban On Using TikTok On Government Devices (JTN)

The Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would ban federal employees from using Chinese social media platform TikTok on government-issued devices. The upper chamber sent the measure to the House for approval after granting it their unanimous consent, the Wall Street Journal reported. TikTok has long been the subject of federal scrutiny over potential security concerns involving its handling of U.S. user data and the close relationship between its parent company, the Beijing-based ByteDance, and the Chinese communist regime. Former President Donald Trump unsuccessfully attempted to ban the app outright though lawmakers have continuously warned of the lingering threat it poses.


The Senate bill comes the same day a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to prohibit the app in the United States entirely. Moreover, it follows the Wednesday unveiling of a bipartisan plan to sanction Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, another Chinese company under scrutiny for its ties to Beijing. The plan would add the company to the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list, which would prohibit American firms from dealing with the company almost entirely.

Read more …

Didn’t work then either.

• How Economic Sanctions in Ancient Greece Backfired, Prolonging War (GR)

Sanctions date back to antiquity, with the “Megarian Decree” issued by Athenian statesman Pericles in 432 BC being the first economic sanction recorded. The Megarian Decree was an act of revenge by the Athenians for the treacherous behavior of the Megarians some years earlier. However, if Athens openly attacked the Spartan ally it would violate the peace. Athens imposed the embargo to show other Spartan allies that Athens had other means of punishing attackers who were under Sparta’s military protection. Thus, the decree could be seen as an attempt to avoid provoking Sparta directly. Some historians argue that the Megarian Decree ultimately helped to prolong and intensify of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). Using the excuse of sacrilege against the land that was sacred to Demeter, known as the Hiera Orgas, Pericles wanted to punish Megara.


The supposed killing of the Athenian herald who was sent to Megara to reproach them, and their giving shelter to slaves who had fled from Athens, brought about the economic sanctions against the city. The decree dictated that Megarian merchants would be excluded from the market of Athens and the ports in its empire, called the Delian League. The decree was something like a modern trade embargo. If farmers had trespassed on sacred land, it was strange that the Megarian Decree aimed at punishing the merchants of the city. That implied a political aim. Even though such sanctions were known and applied in the Near East, they had been unheard of in the Delian League. Pericles was the first westerner to apply them, and for some historians that was the first time that economic sanctions had been used as foreign policy.

Read more …

“..This is dangerous to democracy.”

• With Elon Owning Twitter Government Only Controls 97% Of The Media (BBee)

The White House issued a dire warning this week, reminding the nation that Elon’s continued ownership of Twitter means they now only control 97% of the media. “We can’t overstate how dangerous this is,” said gay black Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “Yes, we still control Facebook, Google, Apple, Instagram, YouTube, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Hollywood, TIME, USAToday, The Wall Street Journal, and pretty much all the rest, but we don’t control Twitter. This is dangerous to democracy.” The entire intelligence community at the CIA, FBI, and NSA concurred with the warning, stating that “Elon’s ownership of Twitter leaves America vulnerable to dangerous opinions we do not approve of.”


Leaders with the agencies are recommending immediate investigations to bring down the Twitter CEO provided their planned drone strike doesn’t work first. “Democracy is at stake,” said all the agency leaders in a shared statement in which they all recited the words simultaneously in a robotic monotone. “We must do something. Democracy is at stake.” At publishing time, several watchdog groups had underscored the warning, pointing to a 128% increase in exposure to unapproved opinions since Musk’s Twitter purchase.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Cryptome

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tambja morosa, also known as gloomy nudibranch lives primarily in the Indo-Pacific area
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603025499890094080

 

 

 

 

Swan landing

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 28 2020

Sep 282020
 
 September 28, 2020  Posted by at 9:23 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


Dorothea Lange Abandoned cafe in Carey, Texas “Carey is fast becoming a ghost town of the Texas plains.” 1937

 

• New York Times Mysteriously Obtains Trump Financial Records (RS)
• New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again (CT)
• Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)
• Appellate Court Halts Wisconsin Ballot-Counting Extension (AP)
• As Mueller Probe Fizzles, Anti-Trump Cabal Hatches New Collusion Tale (Smith)
• COVID-19 Patients Who Get Enough Vitamin D Are 52% Less Likely To Die (DM)
• New Covid Fines Of Up To £10,000 Come Into Force In England (G.)
• Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon (Pol.)
• Federal Judge Gives Temporary Reprieve To TikTok (NBC)
• Azerbaijan & Armenia Carry On Fighting Over Contested Nagorno-Karabakh (RT)

 

 

Will we ever find out who leaked Trump’s tax returns from Cyrus Vance’s offices? And does anyone still care that this is highly illegal?

 

 

 

 

 

 

ZeroHedge Nothing Illegal

Balding tax returns

 

 

The New York Times once upon a time had intelligent journalists with a lot of integrity working -hard- for it. Now they go an yet another fishing trip looking to catch something illegal, but they fail, and still try to dress it all up as something terrible. No pride, no integrity.

• New York Times Mysteriously Obtains Trump Financial Records (RS)

The New York Times reports that it has obtained President Trump’s ‘tax information” going back “over two decades.” The leak is from New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., or one of his underlings. We know Vance has obtained all of the financial records Trump had on file with Deutsche Bank, his primary lender. We know Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. And, via the New York Times, we know that these records go back into the 1990s or, in the parlance of the day, “over two decades.” If the New York Times is correct, Trump’s finances being something of a hot mess is not a shocker. Trump has been on the edge of bankruptcy before and has employed mighty financial kung fu to stay solvent.

[..] From the tenor of the article, they think the revelation that Trump was getting a $72.9 million tax refund and only paying $750 in federal income taxes will be damaging. I really doubt that will be the case. There are things in this story that lead me to believe that either the people writing it are stupid or they think you are stupid. For instance: “In fact, those public filings offer a distorted picture of his financial state, since they simply report revenue, not profit. In 2018, for example, Mr. Trump announced in his disclosure that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records deliver a very different portrait of his bottom line: $47.4 million in losses.” These two things are not incompatible, and the fact that you declare earnings on a report that asks for earnings and not profit is not deceptive. The technical term is “compliance.”

By far, the most notable thing about this story is the willingness of the New York Times to engage in election interference by timing their release within 60 days of the election (that’s the standard, right? 60 days?). That and the role that seems to have been played by the Manhattan DA’s office in leaking records ostensibly demanded from Deutsche Bank as part of a criminal investigation to facilitate a political hit. The fact that a district attorney’s office is using such records as part of a political attack on the President within 60 days of an election is unprecedented (that’s the word, right? unprecedented?). The actions by Vance or his office virtually guarantee that any tax returns released to that office will find similar use as political ammunition.

There is a good chance that this story was intended to launch much closer to the election had the scope and extent of Hunter Biden’s financial shenanigans and the degree to which the ChiComs have their tentacles sunk into Sundown Joe not come to light…and will get even more light, I suspect, on Tuesday night. When the dust settles on this, I think the story is going to be “very rich guy with a fascination for high-risk business ventures pays lots of brilliant tax lawyers and accountants a crap-load of money to minimize and avoid (but not evade) income taxes and says he makes more money than he really does to golf partners.”

Read more …

Excellent question from sundance: “Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office..”

• New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again (CT)

Once again the New York Times attempts to make an issue out of President Trump’s real estate holdings working as a tax shelter and reducing income taxes. In the article the Times completely obfuscates the way income taxes are strategically offset by depreciation, mortgage interest and the entire reason why real estate ownership is viewed as a business. John Carney writing for Breitbart gets it: […] So imagine our guy took out an $8 million mortgage at five percent, paying $2 million cash. Now he’s got to pay $400,000 in mortgage payments. He wants to make at least that much so he charges tenants an aggregate of $425,000, which after upkeep comes out to $410,000 of net income. (Remember, if the bank didn’t think he could make more in rent than the mortgage payment, it probably wouldn’t have lent him the money.)

“The interest payment on the loan–let’s call it $390,000–is deductible from his income, leaving him with $20,000 in net income. He gets to keep that and pay no taxes on it, however, because he still gets to apply the $370,000 depreciation charge. He tells the IRS he lost $350,000. Under our tax code, ordinary business expenses can be deducted in the year they are incurred. But when a business pays for a long-lasting item expected to produce income–like machinery, vehicles, or an apartment building–it is considered a capital investment. Instead of getting to write-off the cost all at once, the business is required to write it off over the course of decades. After the 1986 tax code, this was set at 27.5 years for residential real estate.” d

Anyone who has ever operated a business knows that offsetting income is one of the primary reasons to be self-employed. Additionally, the Times completely skips over the tens-of-millions in payroll taxes paid by the Trump organization and tens-of-millions in property and sales taxes paid by all of the various Trump properties. In the commercial real estate market it is common sense to offset income tax liabilities with a host of valid annual expenses, long-term capital depreciation and mortgage interest payments. With over 500 individual business entities within the Trump organization the ability to offset income in one asset with expenses in another is simply good accounting.

Additionally, President Trump donates his $400,000 government salary back to the U.S. government. So to accuse President Trump of only paying $750 in income taxes totally ignores all of the other donations and tax payments he makes. In practical terms no President before Trump has ever had his actual business portfolio so deeply connected to the success of the American economy. It doesn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime to have President Trump in office…. Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office. Anyone?

Read more …

It’s getting serious. O’Keefe says they have been filming this for months.

• Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)

A ballot-harvesting racket in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district — where paid workers illegally gather absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants — appears to have been busted by undercover news organization Project Veritas. One alleged ballot harvester, Liban Mohamed, the brother of Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, is shown in a bombshell Snapchat video rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard. “Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” says Mohamed, aka KingLiban1, in the video. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now . . . “Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. . . . Look, all these are for Jamal Osman,” he says, displaying the white envelopes.

“Money is the king in this world . . . and a campaign is driven by money.” The video, posted on July 1, was obtained by Project Veritas and included in a 17-minute video expose released Sunday night. Under Minnesota law no individual can be the “designated agent” for more than three absentee voters. The allegations come just five weeks before a presidential election plagued with predictions of voter fraud. Both President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have warned that the increased use of mail-in ballots, due to COVID-19 concerns about in-person voting, are vulnerable to fraud, especially when unsolicited ballots are mailed to all voters in certain states.

Project Veritas’ investigation in Minneapolis will pour gasoline on the fire, only 48 hours before Trump debates Joe Biden in the first presidential debate Tuesday, addressing topics including election security. “Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities” said James O’Keefe, founder and CEO of Project Veritas. The alleged involvement of Ilhan Omar, a controversial member of the Squad, and frequent Trump target, is claimed on camera by two people in Veritas’ investigation, including whistleblower Omar Jamal, a Minneapolis community leader and chair of the city’s Somali Watchdog Group.

Read more …

First of how many?

• Appellate Court Halts Wisconsin Ballot-Counting Extension (AP)

A federal appeals court on Sunday temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential election, a momentary victory for Republicans and President Donald Trump in the key presidential battleground state. As it stands, ballots will now be due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lower court judge had sided with Democrats and their allies to extend the deadline until Nov. 9. Democrats sought more time as a way to help deal with an expected historic high number of absentee ballots. The Democratic National Committee, the state Democratic Party and allied groups including the League of Women Voters sued to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.


U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Sept. 21 that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court issues any further action. [..] State election officials anticipate as many as 2 million people will cast absentee ballots to avoid catching the coronavirus at the polls. That would be three times more absentee ballots than any other previous election and could overwhelm both election officials and the postal service, Conley wrote. If the decision had stood it could have delayed knowing the winner of Wisconsin for days. The Republican National Committee, the state GOP and Wisconsin’s Republican legislators argued that current absentee voting rules be left in place, saying people have plenty of time to obtain and return their ballots.

Read more …

Second installment of a two-part excerpt from Lee Smith’s book “The Permanent Coup: How Enemies Foreign and Domestic Targeted the American President”.

“According to the story the CIA officer and his colleagues would tell, Trump was again in league with a foreign power to defeat a rival candidate. They rotated Ukraine in for Russia and Biden for Clinton.”

• As Mueller Probe Fizzles, Anti-Trump Cabal Hatches New Collusion Tale (Smith)

Just two days after the curtain dropped on the Mueller investigation, Ciaramella was rebooting the collusion narrative. According to the story the CIA officer and his colleagues would tell, Trump was again in league with a foreign power to defeat a rival candidate. They rotated Ukraine in for Russia and Biden for Clinton. The operation’s personnel drew from the same sources as the Russia collusion operation — serving officials from powerful government bureaucracies, the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department, as well as elected officials, political operatives, and the press. Therefore, the process was also the same: The actors would work the operation through the intelligence bureaucracy and the media to start an official proceeding, in this case an impeachment process. The play was set to begin.

Ciaramella first expressed his concern to a CIA lawyer. Frustrated that his action wasn’t moving quickly enough, he turned to the intelligence community inspector general responsible for oversight of all 17 of the nation’s agencies. On August 12, he filed a whistleblower’s report with ICIG Michael Atkinson. It was a version of the dossier, allegations based on second- and thirdhand sources. Steele said that his information came from anonymous Russians; Ciaramella claimed his came from unnamed Americans. “In the course of my official duties,” wrote Ciaramella, “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. elections.”

He even replicated a key feature from Steele’s memos that helped the FBI obtain the FISA warrant. The dossier alleged that the Trump campaign had agreed to two Ukraine-related quid pro quos. One, in exchange for the hack and release of DNC emails, the Trump team would sideline Ukraine as campaign issue. Two, in exchange for dropping Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, a Putin ally promised Trump advisers energy deals. Ciaramella also alleged a Ukraine-related quid pro quo. His August 12 report added a detail missing from the July 26 memo. He claimed in his document he’d learned earlier in July that Trump had “issued instructions to suspend all security assistance to Ukraine.” With this, the CIA official had planted the seed that would grow into the basis of the impeachment charges brought against Trump:

The president had withheld foreign aid in exchange for something that would benefit him personally — an investigation of his political rival. Ciaramella and his confederates had simply taken the boastful blunder Biden made in front of the Manhattan audience and hung it on Trump. Now he was the one using U.S. aid to secure a favor from a Ukrainian president. It was an audacious move, but the Ciaramella dossier was also a defensive maneuver. “It was born out of desperation,” says one of his former colleagues. “He wasn’t just trying to protect Biden,” says the source, a former senior Obama administration intelligence official. [..] When he finds out Trump may get the Burisma investigation restarted, he’s worried for himself, too.”

Read more …

And 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. And if you do anyway, zinc hinders virus (RNA) replication in your cells. Two simple and cheap ways to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

• COVID-19 Patients Who Get Enough Vitamin D Are 52% Less Likely To Die (DM)

People who get enough vitamin D are at a 52 percent lower risk of dying of COVID-19 than people who are deficient for the ‘sunshine vitamin,’ new research reveals. Vitamin D plays a crucial role in the immune system and may combat inflammation. These features may make it a key player in the body’s fight against coronavirus. Rates of vitamin D deficiency are also higher in some of the same groups who have been hardest hit by coronavirus: people of color and elderly people. It’s by no means a causal link, but suggests that vitamin D could play a role in who gets COVI-19, who gets sickest from it, and who is spared altogether.

Boston University’s Dr Michael Holick found in his previous research that people who have enough vitamin D are 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. Following on that work, he and his team have found that people who don’t get enough of the vitamin are far more likely to become severely ill, develop sepsis or even die after contracting coronavirus. Because vitamin D deficiency is common in people with other disease that raise coronavirus risks, it’s impossible to say exactly how many lives would be spared if we all got our daily dose of the sunshine vitamin. But we know that about 42 percent of the US population is vitamin D deficient. If that rate held true for the more 203,000 Americans who died of coronavirus, perhaps some 85,000 would have fared better with improved vitamin D levels.

In Britain 20 per cent of the population suffer from the deficiency, according to the British Nutrition Foundation. When the rate is applied to the UK’s 41,936 deaths from coronavirus, it suggests 8,387 of them could have been helped with improved levels of Vitamin D. ‘This study provides direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce the complications, including the cytokine storm (release of too many proteins into the blood too quickly) and ultimately death from COVID-19,’ Dr Holick said. Dr Holick and his colleagues took blood samples from 235 patients admitted to hospitals in Tehran for COVID-19. Overall, 67 percent of the patients had vitamin D levels below 30 ng/mL.

There isn’t a clear marker for the ideal level of vitamin D, but 30 ng/mL is considered a sufficient. Anything below that is ‘insufficient,’ but won’t necessarily have broad-ranging health consequences, while levels below 20 ng/mL are considered ‘deficient.’ About 60 percent of elderly people living in nursing homes, for example, are thought to be vitamin D deficient. The most likely explanation is that they simply spend too much time indoors. Sunlight is our primary source of vitamin D. When we are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation in rays of sunshine, it reacts with cholesterol in our skin, triggering the production of vitamin D. In an increasingly indoor world, rates of vitamin D deficiency have climbed.

Read more …

Behind a paywall, the Times reports pub curfew does not apply to bars in Parliament. Way to go.

• New Covid Fines Of Up To £10,000 Come Into Force In England (G.)

A new, more robust chapter in English coronavirus regulations begins on Monday, with fines of up to £10,000 for people who refuse to self-isolate when asked, and enforcement including tip-offs from people who believe that others are breaching the rules. The changes come with the duty to self-isolate moving into law. It becomes a legal obligation if someone is told to do so by test-and-trace staff, but not for those simply using the Covid-19 phone app, which is anonymous. At the same time, the government is introducing a new system of payments of £500 for people on lower incomes who are unable to work because of the mandatory 14-day self-isolation, a system being implemented by councils.

The two-pronged approach, intended to create better compliance with self-isolation rules, was described by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, as “imperative” in helping keep down coronavirus infection rates. According to a health department statement setting out the new system, local authorities are expected to have their test-and-trace support schemes up and running within two weeks, with those self-isolating before then given backdated payments as needed. However, the Local Government Association, which represents councils, has warned it will be “challenging” for these to be set up at speed, adding that “urgent clarity is needed about how councils will be reimbursed for costs of setting up these schemes and the payments themselves”.

To be eligible for the payment, people must have been told to self-isolate by test and trace – having tested positive for coronavirus or being in close contact with someone who has – as well as having lost income as a result, and be recipients of one or more of a series of benefits, including universal credit, income support and housing benefit. Those who do not self-isolate when told to could face fines, which start at £1,000 and rise to £10,000 for repeat offences, or those who instigate breaches of the law, such as an employer who orders or permits people to come to work when they should not. Test-and-trace call handlers will check on those told to self-isolate, with police taking a role in areas or groups seen as high risk, as well as acting on tip-offs from neighbours or others who spot suspected breaches, the government announcement said.

Read more …

We need tolerance of people who do not think exactly like we do.

• Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon (Pol.)

Amy Coney Barrett has been praised for her topflight legal mind, even by those who disagree with her. At 48 years old, she is poised to help shape the court for a generation or more. But that’s not all her elevation to the high court has the potential to accomplish. Barrett’s expected confirmation should serve as a catalyst for rethinking the most powerful social movement in the last half century: feminism. Over the last week, as Justice Ginsburg’s body laid in repose outside the Supreme Court, the nation has rightly celebrated Ginsburg’s trailblazing 1970s legal advocacy, one which pushed both law and culture to reexamine the ways in which women had been pigeonholed as caregivers and men as providers. The late justice’s antidiscrimination wins opened up a new era in which both men and women could respectably and responsibly engage in both avenues of fulfillment, according to their personal talents and circumstances.

But Ginsburg also viewed abortion rights as central to sexual equality, and her leadership helped give rise to a movement that remains laser focused on abortion to this day. Yet rather than make women more equal to men, constitutionalizing the right to abortion as the court did in Roe has relieved men of the mutual responsibilities that accompany sex, and so has upended the duties of care for dependent children that fathers ought equally to share. Barrett embodies a new kind of feminism, a feminism that builds upon the praiseworthy antidiscrimination work of Ginsburg but then goes further. It insists not just on the equal rights of men and women, but also on their common responsibilities, particularly in the realm of family life. In this new feminism, sexual equality is found not in imitating men’s capacity to walk away from an unexpected pregnancy through abortion, but rather in asking men to meet women at a high standard of mutual responsibility, reciprocity and care.

At Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein tellingly remarked, “You are controversial because many of us that have lived lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems, and Roe entered into that, obviously.” Barrett’s life story puzzles older feminists like Feinstein because bearing and raising a bevy of children has long implied retaining a traditional life script — like staying home with the children — that Barrett has obviously not heeded. To be sure, few mothers of seven could become federal judges, never mind Supreme Court justices. Barrett – “generationally brilliant,” according to her Notre Dame colleague, O. Carter Snead — is likely alone in this set.

It all seems so unlikely: She has risen to the pinnacle of her profession while at once being “radically hospitable” to children, as Snead has described her. An enigma to many, she doesn’t easily fit into any ideological box. If we’re really intent as a country on seeing women flourish in their professions and serve in greater numbers of leadership positions too, it would be worthwhile to interrupt the abortion rights sloganeering for a beat and ask just how this mother of many has achieved so much.

Read more …

Much ado about an app. China’s worried about the source code.

• Federal Judge Gives Temporary Reprieve To TikTok (NBC)

A federal judge granted a temporary reprieve Sunday to TikTok, the short-form video app that was facing a Trump administration-imposed midnight deadline that would have prevented users from downloading it. The order from U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of Washington, D.C., allows U.S. app stores to continue offering downloads. Nichols did not rule on a second, more comprehensive ban that would halt U.S. companies from working with TikTok. In a statement, TikTok said that it was pleased with the ruling and that it “will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees.”


“At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the president gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement,” it said. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, struck a deal with Oracle this month to move the company’s headquarters to the United States. The software giant would oversee its operations. Walmart is also involved in the deal. TikTok has been under scrutiny from the Trump administration for nearly a year over concerns that the Chinese government could gain access to American users’ data. President Donald Trump said in July that he would ban the app. Trump said this month that he had given his “blessing” to the deal and that he had approved it in concept.

Read more …

This is real war. Stop it.

• Azerbaijan & Armenia Carry On Fighting Over Contested Nagorno-Karabakh (RT)

Intense hostilities between Armenian and Azeri forces continued overnight along the border of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Both sides claimed local victories and reported inflicting heavy casualties on one another. Azerbaijan and Armenia, two historical rivals, kept on fighting throughout Sunday night and Monday morning despite mounting calls from international leaders to hold fire and disengage troops. There have been skirmishes “of different intensity” overnight on the Nagorno-Karabakh border, a spokesperson for the Armenian Defense Ministry reported earlier on Monday. “The adversary resumed offensive using artillery and armor, including the heavy flamethrower system TOS,” the official revealed.

The Armenian military are deterring the attack, “inflicting significant losses on the enemy in manpower and equipment.” Baku, meanwhile, blamed its arch-nemesis for targeting civilian-populated areas. On Monday morning, Armenian forces have been shelling Terter, a border town of roughly 19,000 people, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told the media. “Proper measures” will be taken if the bombardment doesn’t stop, the ministry warned. Previously, Baku suggested at least 550 Armenian soldiers were killed or injured in the Azeri “counteroffensive,” along with dozens of tanks, howitzers, and air defense systems lost in action. Yerevan promptly rebuked the claim as “unfounded.” Nagorno-Karabakh itself reported a loss of 31 Armenian soldiers in the fighting.

The lingering hostilities broke out previously on Sunday morning. Yerevan accused Baku of using combat aircraft and heavy artillery to bomb targets within Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region administered and populated by ethnic Armenians but claimed by Azerbaijan as part of its territory. Baku, in turn, said it had counter-attacked in response to Armenian “provocations.” Both sides – which have fought on numerous occasions since the Soviet Union’s demise – sent reinforcements to the frontline and blamed one another for targeting civilians.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

 

 

“We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.”
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

Debt Rattle September 14 2020

Sep 142020
 
 September 14, 2020  Posted by at 9:11 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


Edvard Munch Love and pain 1895

 

• “A Harris Administration Together With Joe Biden” (AZC)
• America’s Color Revolution (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Biden Says Stay in Mideast, Increase Military Spending (Antiwar)
• Wiped Phones Obstruction Of Justice, Worst Sort Destruction Of Evidence (RCP)
• Trump Signs New, Expanded Executive Order To Lower US Drug Prices (R.)
• State Dept Reported Burisma Paid Bribe While Hunter Biden Served On Board (JTN)
• The Fed’s New Framework: This Time Is Different (Zentner)
• Oracle Emerges As Likely US Partner For TikTok (JTN)
• Beijing’s Mass Surveillance Of Australia And The World (ABC.au)
• The Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods (Conv.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taleb: Retrospective bigotteering

 

 

What a most curious thing to say. Where does that come from? Is it equal to “A Pence Administration Together With Donald Trump”?

• “A Harris Administration Together With Joe Biden” (AZC)

Pointing to Arizona’s high coronavirus losses, Kamala Harris urged the state’s residents to register and vote for an administration committed to its health and business needs. In a five-minute virtual speech Saturday cast as a conversation with Latina small business owners, the senator from California said she and her running mate, Joe Biden, will create manufacturing incentives, roll back tax cuts that went to the wealthy and preserve health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. “For everyone on this call, Joe and I understand that your business is the heartbeat of your community,” Harris said. “As part of our Build Back Better agenda, we will need to make sure you have a president in the White House who actually sees you, who understands your needs, who understands the dignity of your work and who has your back.”


Harris’ speech is a reminder of the key role Hispanic voters are expected to play in helping win Arizona, a battleground for the White House. The Biden-Harris ticket is expected to win most Hispanic votes, but polling suggests they are doing so in numbers smaller than Democrat Hillary Clinton did in her losing 2016 campaign. Harris said a Democratic administration, which she called “a Harris administration together with Joe Biden,” would provide $100 billion in low-interest loans and investments for minority-owned businesses, a $15,000 tax credit for first-time home-buyers and allow government-run health insurance to compete with private insurers.

Read more …

“Trump, isolated in his own government, will be cut off from Twitter, Facebook and from the print and TV media.”

• America’s Color Revolution (Paul Craig Roberts)

Russiagate was a coup that failed, followed by the failed Impeachgate coup. Faced with Trump’s reelection and the realization that upon reelection Trump will be able to deal with the treason against him, the Deep State has decided to take him out with a color revolution. The evidence of a color revolution in the works is abundantly supplied by CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post and numerous Internet sites funded by the CIA and the foundations and corporations through which it operates, all of which are committed to Trump’s ejection from the Oval Office. The American public does not realize the extent to which the institutions of a free society have been penetrated and turned against freedom. All of these media organizations are establishing the story in the mind of Americans that Trump will not leave office when he loses or steals the election and must be driven out.

Emails are arriving from readers in the UK and Europe reporting that the British and European media are at work preparing the acceptability of the CIA’s color revolution against President Trump. It is taken for granted by both media and politicians in Europe and the UK that Trump cannot win reelection because he (1) is a Putin agent, (2) abuses the power of his office, (3) represents racist “Trump Deplorables,” (4) is a womanizer—“grab them by the pussy,” (5) is responsible for America leading the world in Covid-19 cases and deaths, (6) doesn’t support NATO (a sinecure for many Europeans), (7) is an outsider and not a member of The Establishment and “is not like us,” (8) “has orange hair” (orange is considered a low class color). You can add your own to the list.

The scenarios for what the American, British, and European media assume to be a necessary color revolution to drive Trump from office are: • Trump loses the election, refuses to leave office and must be dislodged or democracy is lost. • Trump wins the election by fraud and must be dislodged or democracy is lost. The scenarios do not accommodate Trump actually winning the election by the vote of the people. That outcome is outside the possibilities. According to the media, Trump can only lose or steal the election. With Antifa and Black Lives Matter now experienced in violent protests, they will be unleashed anew on American cities when there is news of a Trump election victory. The media will explain the violence as necessary to free us from a tyrant and egg on the violence, as will the Democrat Party. The CIA will be certain that the violence is well funded.

Trump, isolated in his own government, which has failed to bring charges against the Obama regime officials who tried to frame the President of the United States and drive him from office—Barr and Durham represent The Establishment, not the President or law—will be cut off from Twitter, Facebook and from the print and TV media. All Americans and the world will hear is that Trump lost and must go or Trump won by vote fraud and must go. It will be impossible for Trump or anyone to refute the charges.

Read more …

“The priorities, as are so often the case for the US, are fighting Russia, who Biden identified as a “near-peer” power. The US spends more than ten times the amount on its military annually that Russia does, and it is unclear in what way they are a “near-peer.”

• Biden Says Stay in Mideast, Increase Military Spending (Antiwar)

Former Vice President Joe Biden gave some of his first foreign policy-related positions in an interview with Stars and Stripes on Thursday, saying the “forever wars have to end” while seemingly ruling out any full-fledged withdrawals, arguing the US still has to worry about terrorism and ISIS. Biden said the ongoing US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are so complicated he can’t promise a withdrawal. He also suggested he may increase military spending even beyond its current record levels as he shifts focus to what he believes should be the military’s priorities. The priorities, as are so often the case for the US, are fighting Russia, who Biden identified as a “near-peer” power.


The US spends more than ten times the amount on its military annually that Russia does, and it is unclear in what way they are a “near-peer.” Either way, Biden intends to shift the focus toward unmanned drones and cyber-warfare, and suggests that is likely to boil down to not just a shift in where money is spent, but likely an increase in spending as well. “First thing I’m going to have to do, and I’m not joking: if elected I’m going to have to get on the phone with the heads of state and say America’s back,” Biden said, saying NATO has been “worried as hell about our failure to confront Russia.”

Read more …

Sidney Powell.

• Wiped Phones Obstruction Of Justice, Worst Sort Destruction Of Evidence (RCP)

Sidney Powell, the attorney for Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, appeared on FOX Business and denounced the Mueller team for having their phones wiped before the DOJ inspector general could view their contents. “I wrote about it in an article in 2018 complaining that Rosenstein and Mueller allowed the Strzok/Page cell phones from the special counsel operation to be destroyed, and I demanded that the IG seize the other phones then and collect all the evidence off of them,” Powell said Thursday. “And then the IG lets this happen. All of those phones should have been seized while at the end of the special counsel operation while they were still doing it, and they should have nailed every one of them.”


Powell on Strzok: “Peter Strzok is a liar. Peter Strzok is the one who altered the 302 multiple times in conjunction with Lisa Page until he added statements that were not reflected in the notes of the two agents that interviewed General Flynn.” “And both agent Strzok and agent Pientka who interviewed him knew at the time he was telling them the truth. That’s why Flynn was never re-interviewed. They didn’t even warn him about a 1001 statement, and they didn’t let him look at the transcript like they do with every other witness.” “They treated him differently than anyone else they ever interviewed for anything. They schemed and planned to interview him in such a way he did not even know he was the subject of the interview or investigation and they did that deliberately, violating all the rules in the process.”

Read more …

Got to love this from Big Pharma:

“a reckless attack on the very companies working around the clock to beat COVID19.”

• Trump Signs New, Expanded Executive Order To Lower US Drug Prices (R.)

President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on Sunday aimed at lowering drug prices in the United States by linking them to those of other nations and expanding the scope of a July action. “My Most Favored Nation order will ensure that our Country gets the same low price Big Pharma gives to other countries. The days of global freeriding at America’s expense are over,” Trump said in a Twitter post. The latest step, coming less than two months before the Nov. 3 presidential election, would replace a July 24 Trump executive order. It extends the mandate to prescription drugs available at a pharmacy, which are covered under Medicare Part D. The July version focused on drugs typically administered in doctors’ offices and health clinics, covered by Medicare Part B.


Specifically, it would pay a price for a drug that matches the lowest price paid among wealthy foreign governments. Medicare, the government healthcare program for seniors, is currently prohibited from negotiating prices it pays to drugmakers. It also requires issuing new federal rules, a complex process that might not be done by Election Day. Determining prices paid by other countries could be challenging as negotiations between governments and drugmakers often are kept confidential. The industry’s largest trade group – the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA – denounced Trump’s move as “a reckless attack on the very companies working around the clock to beat COVID-19.”

Read more …

Will this go away?

• State Dept Reported Burisma Paid Bribe While Hunter Biden Served On Board (JTN)

Just eight months after Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter joined the board of Burisma Holdings, U.S. officials in Kiev developed evidence that the Ukrainian gas company may have paid a $7 million bribe to the local prosecutors investigating the firm for corruption, according to interviews and State Department memos. State officials believed the alleged bribe was paid between May and December 2014 and got confirmation from one prosecutor. They argued the bribe amounted to a “gross miscarriage of justice that undermined months of US assistance” to fight corruption in Ukraine, contemporaneous memos show. The concerns were eventually reported to the FBI, although it is not clear whether the allegations were ever investigated more fully, according to current and former U.S. and Ukrainian government officials.

The anecdote, buried in five-year-old diplomatic files, provides a fresh illustration of the awkward, uncomfortable conflict of interest State officials perceived as they tried to fight pervasive corruption in Ukraine under Joe Biden’s leadership while the vice president’s son collected large payments as a board member for an energy firm widely viewed as corrupt. The concerns first came to a head in January 2015, the memos show, about eight months after Hunter Biden was named to Burisma’s board and after two major corruption investigations — one in Ukraine and the other in Britain — were opened against the gas firm.

George Kent, then a State Department official newly sent to the U.S. embassy in Kiev to lead anti-corruption efforts, was concerned the bribery allegations surrounding Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema were credible enough that he sought a meeting with one of Yarema’s deputies to demand action, according to State Department memos. His concern was triggered when Yarema took action over the Christmas 2014 holidays to undercut both the British and Ukraine investigations of Burisma and its founder Mykola Zlochevsky, and the U.S. embassy received word a $7 million bribe had changed hands, State memos show. The Feb. 3, 2015 meeting involved Kent, one of Yarema’s top deputies, Anatoliy Danylenko, as well as the DOJ’s liaison in Ukraine, Jeffrey Cole, memos show. It was arranged by Andrii Telizhenko, an English-speaking mid-level Ukrainian government official long trusted by the Obama administration in Kiev and Washington to facilitate contacts between the two countries.

“No problem, works for us. I’ll get you the names soonest. Likely George and Jeff Cole. Will confirm later,” U.S. embassy official Gregory W. Pfleger wrote Telizhenko in a lengthy Jan. 31, 2015 email chain that arranged the location, date and attendees for the meeting for three days later. Pfleger had forwarded Kent’s resume to the Ukrainians since he was new to the embassy, and Telizhenko reciprocated by forwarding a biography for Danylenko, the memos show. U.S. officials familiar with the meeting, as well as one eyewitness, told Just the News that Kent strongly confronted Danylenko, insisting the U.S. had strong reason to believe that Burisma officials made a multimillion dollar bribe to Yarema’s office between May 2014 when Hunter Biden joined the board and December 2014.

[..] A few days after the meeting, Yarema abruptly stepped down Feb. 10, 2015 as the chief prosecutor of Ukraine after just a few months in the job.

Strzok believes

Read more …

From Morgan Stanley’s chief economist Ellen Zentner. I must assume these people believe in their own gibberish, as well as the Fed’s.

• The Fed’s New Framework: This Time Is Different (Zentner)

On August 27, Chair Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee made history, rolling out a new inflation-targeting framework. I believe that the central bank is now more likely to achieve its desired inflation target in the current cycle. If it does, this new framework may well be Chair Powell’s legacy. The Fed replaced its old symmetric 2% inflation target with a flexible average inflation-targeting framework. It emphasizes that the Fed will target an inflation overshoot in recoveries following inflation shortfalls during downturns. This has important implications for economic and policy outcomes over the medium term. Most specifically, under Powell’s leadership the Fed has now solidified a more dovish path than in previous recoveries.

Under the new outcome-based approach, the Fed needs evidence of inflation before raising rates, rather than simply forecasting that it will rise. Had this policy framework been in place in the last cycle, with inflation and unemployment evolving exactly as they did, the Fed might have delayed lift-off to as late as 2018, with its overall policy stance more accommodative for longer. It’s not just policy outcomes that are likely to differ. A change in monetary policy dynamics is likely to feed through to inflation expectations, which are relevant to price- and wage-setting. This would make it more likely that the Fed can achieve its inflation targets over the current cycle and that average 2% inflation outcomes are attainable over time.

To be sure, the change in the Fed’s framework makes us even more confident that inflation will be structurally higher over this cycle and beyond. How quickly the output and employment gaps close in this cycle will play a major role in determining when the first rate hike comes. Moreover, we believe that to demonstrate their commitment to the new strategy, policy-makers won’t rush to raise rates at the first sign of success. The longer-term simulations we laid out in Life After Covid suggest that the kind of labor market and inflation conditions the Fed would want to see sustained could be in place for the Fed to consider raising rates by the first half of 2024, sooner should the V-shaped recovery continue to run ahead of expectations.

Long before the first rate hike, the Fed should see the necessary conditions to start taking its foot off the gas. Working backwards, we think the Fed will want to end its asset purchases around a year before the first rate hike. This suggests that asset purchases would stop in early 2023, but tapering is likely to come in mid-2022. Chair Powell has time and again displayed an affinity for long-dated forewarning of Fed action to market participants, so starting to slow the pace of asset purchases around mid-2022 means we should get guidance that tapering is on the horizon by the December 2021 FOMC meeting.

Read more …

I thought they weren’t going to sell at all?!

• Oracle Emerges As Likely US Partner For TikTok (JTN)

Oracle emerged Sunday evening as the likely U.S. partner for the popular social video app TikTok after Microsoft Corp. announced its bid had been rejected by the Chinese app’s owner. “ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft,” the U.S. software maker announced in a blog post. “We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. Microsoft’s rejection left Oracle as the lone remaining U.S. suitor. The Washington Post, quoting an anonymous source, reported Sunday night that ByteDance had chosen Oracle as TikTok’s U.S. technology partner.

Read more …

China emulates the CIA?!

• Beijing’s Mass Surveillance Of Australia And The World (ABC.au)

A Chinese company with links to Beijing’s military and intelligence networks has been amassing a vast database of detailed personal information on thousands of Australians, including prominent and influential figures. A database of 2.4 million people, including more than 35,000 Australians, has been leaked from the Shenzhen company Zhenhua Data which is believed to be used by China’s intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security. Zhenhua has the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party among its main clients. Information collected includes dates of birth, addresses, marital status, along with photographs, political associations, relatives and social media IDs.

It collates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and even TikTok accounts, as well as news stories, criminal records and corporate misdemeanours. While much of the information has been “scraped” from open-source material, some profiles have information which appears to have been sourced from confidential bank records, job applications and psychological profiles. The company is believed to have sourced some of its information from the so-called “dark web”. One intelligence analyst said the database was “Cambridge Analytica on steroids”, referring to the trove of personal information sourced from Facebook profiles in the lead up to the 2016 US election campaign.

[..] The database was leaked to a US academic based in Vietnam, Professor Chris Balding, who until 2018 had worked at the elite Peking University before leaving China citing fears for his physical safety. “China is absolutely building out a massive surveillance state both domestically and internationally,” Professor Balding told the ABC. “They’re using a wide variety of tools — this one is taken primarily from public sources, there is non-public data in here, but it is taken primarily from public sources. “I think it speaks to the broader threat of what China is doing and how they are surveilling, monitoring and seeking to influence… not just their own citizens, but citizens around the world.” Professor Balding has returned to the United States, leaving Vietnam after being advised it was no longer safe for him to be there.

It was also a grave risk taken by the person who leaked the database to him, who contacted him as he started publishing articles about Chinese tech giant Huawei. “We’ve worked very hard to make sure that there are no links between me and that person, once I realised what had been given to me,” he said. “They are still in China. But hopefully I think they will be safe.” Professor Balding gave the database to Canberra cyber security company Internet 2.0 which was able to restore 10 per cent of the 2.4 million records for individuals. Internet 2.0’s chief executive Robert Potter said Zhenhua had built the capacity to track naval vessels and defence assets, to assess the careers of military officers and catalogue the intellectual property of China’s competitors. “This mass collection of data is taking place in China’s private sector, in the same way Beijing outsources its cyber attack capability to private subcontractors,” Mr Potter told the ABC.

Read more …

Awfully simplistic, but a good reminder that this stuff makes your body, and your immune system, much weaker. The last thing you want with a virus like this going around is chronic inflammation.

• The Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods (Conv.)

Humans (and our ancestors) have been processing food for at least 1.8 million years. Roasting, drying, grinding and other techniques made food more nutritious, durable and tasty. This helped our ancestors to colonise diverse habitats, and then develop settlements and civilisations. Many traditional foods used in cooking today are processed in some way, such as grains, cheeses, dried fish and fermented vegetables. Processing itself is not the problem. Only much more recently has a different type of food processing emerged: one that is more extensive, and uses new chemical and physical techniques. This is called ultra-processing, and the resulting products ultra-processed foods.

To make these foods, cheap ingredients such as starches, vegetable oils and sugars, are combined with cosmetic additives like colours, flavours and emulsifiers. Think sugary drinks, confectionery, mass-produced breads, snack foods, sweetened dairy products and frozen desserts. Unfortunately, these foods are terrible for our health. And we’re eating more of them than ever before, partially because of aggressive marketing and lobbying by “Big Food”. [..] We found that more ultra-processed foods in the diet associates with higher risks of obesity, heart disease and stroke, type-2 diabetes, cancer, frailty, depression and death. These harms can be caused by the foods’ poor nutritional profile, as many are high in added sugars, salt and trans-fats.


Also, if you tend to eat more ultra-processed foods, it means you probably eat fewer fresh and less-processed foods. Industrial processing itself can also be harmful. For example, certain food additives can disrupt our gut bacteria and trigger inflammation, while plasticisers in packaging can interfere with our hormonal system. Certain features of ultra-processed foods also promote over-consumption. Product flavours, aromas and mouthfeel are designed to make these foods ultra-tasty, and perhaps even addictive.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now an integral part of the process.

Thank you for your support.

 

 

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest

– Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

Debt Rattle August 9 2020

Aug 092020
 
 August 9, 2020  Posted by at 10:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  20 Responses »


Albert Kahn Paris, Autochrome Lumière color photo 1914

 

• COVID19 Pandemic To ‘Bring Socialism To US’, Transform The World – Taleb (RT)
• What’s In Trump’s Coronavirus Executive Orders (R.)
• Russia COVID19 Vaccine Registration Expected August 12 (RT)
• SARS-CoV-2 Fatality Risk In A Nationwide Seroepidemiological Study (Medrxiv)
• Chuck Schumer Says Schools Must Reopen Or Economy Suffers (RT)
• Trump Aides Exploring Executive Actions To Curb Voting By Mail (Pol.)
• No Payment, No Problem: Bizarre New World of Consumer Debt (WS)
• Social Media Imposing Modern-Day ‘Hays Code’ On Political Speech (RCP)
• Twitter Reportedly Joins Growing List Of Potential TikTok Suitors (ZH)
• US To Cut Troop Levels In Afghanistan To ‘Less Than 5,000’ – Esper (R.)
• Oil Giants Cut Production By 1 Million bpd Amid Massive Writedowns (R.)
• Zelensky Says Ukraine Staying Out Of US Internal Politics, Elections (R.)
• George W. Bush Laid the Groundwork for Today’s Immigration Nightmare (MPN)
• West’s Favorite Hong Kong ‘Freedom Writer’ Is American In Yellowface (GZ)
• Solidarity with the Germans (Varoufakis)

 

 

Weekend, so lower numbers. US new deaths were below 1,000 (976), so I lost that grpah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hedge funds dollar

 

 

Who would have thought that the first socialist president of the United States would be Donald Trump?

• COVID19 Pandemic To ‘Bring Socialism To US’, Transform The World – Taleb (RT)

In a remarkable twist, the raging coronavirus pandemic has forced even countries like the US to adopt “socialist” welfare programs, acclaimed author and risk analyst Nassim Taleb has told RT. While people spend days worrying about global wars, our biggest threats have always been the pandemics, the author of ‘The Black Swan’ and ‘Skin in the Game’ told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze on her show SophieCo. Visionaries. The advent of the novel coronavirus will tremendously change societies in many ways, making them better ready for future crises, he said. “So the world will be different, wiser. But, hopefully, it will be good for peace, because people will understand tomorrow that the enemy is not some person with weapons. The enemy is that thing you don’t see: a tiny little germ you can have on top of a pencil,” the writer added.

What I think is going to happen is a transformation of economic structures to accommodate potential pandemics. Even if they never happen again, people will be prepared for them. He cited the boom of teleworking, Zoom conference calls, and online shopping as examples of people adapting to the new reality. According to Taleb, globalization would become more “guarded,” rather than disappear entirely. “The physical movement of population… would be reduced, and business travel will not be as active as we saw in the past,” he said. One of the most remarkable changes the pandemic has brought, the writer noted, was how some governments have been “extremely helpful” to citizens trapped in quarantines and lockdowns.

This touched the US as well, where a $2 trillion stimulus package was adopted in May, the largest in the nation’s history. Who would have thought that the first socialist president of the United States would be Donald Trump? He gave people universal basic income for a few months, and they took possession of companies. If that’s not socialism, I don’t know what is. So, the individuals got a protective net that they didn’t have before. “Mark my words, if you want a headline done – ‘Who would have expected the Covid to run both domestic and foreign policy?’, ‘Covid to bring socialism to countries like the United States,’” Taleb said.

Read more …

Yeah. No. Everyone may get this wrong or confused, but from what I can see he signed just one executive order (on payroll tax), the other three are memoranda. Details on that:

The hierarchy is: Proclamations, executive orders, presidential memoranda, presidential notices, and presidential determinations. Notices and determinations are usually required by Congress on specific issues. Authority: Under an executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy, an executive order must cite the authority the president has to issue it. That could be the constitution, or a specific statute. Presidential memoranda have no such requirement.

• What’s In Trump’s Coronavirus Executive Orders (R.)

After failing to reach a deal with the U.S. Congress for a fresh round of coronavirus pandemic relief, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at pumping up America’s pandemic-hit economy. The orders are likely to face some legal challenges. Trump’s order cuts enhanced federal unemployment benefits – a lifeline for the tens of millions of Americans thrown out of work during the pandemic – from $600 to $400 per week. Democrats had been lobbying to extend the original $600 a week enhanced benefits, which expired on July 31. Trump proposes taking most of the money from the coffers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency – $44 billion, according to the order – with 25% of the money coming from states.

It’s not clear how Trump will convince state governments, whose revenues have been hard hit by the crisis, to pony up their proposed share. Trump called the reduced payments “generous.” Trump’s first order waives the payroll tax that funds Social Security in a bid to inject extra money directly into salaried employees’ pockets. Trump has been pushing the idea for a while but it has found little support in Congress from Democrats or his fellow Republicans. The executive order says the cut comes into effect on Sept. 1, but Trump said it “most likely” would be retroactive to Aug. 1 and translate into “bigger paychecks for working families.”

Trump’s order protecting homeowners and renters from evictions is unlikely to face a challenge from Democrats; indeed, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week encouraged the move. But it isn’t clear how it will be executed. The order directs authorities to provide “temporary financial assistance” to renters and homeowners “struggling to meet their monthly rental or mortgage obligations.” Even Trump seemed a little hazy on the order’s ultimate effects, saying “we don’t want people being evicted and the act that I am signing will solve that problem – largely, hopefully, completely.” Trump said that interest on student loan payments – frozen since March – would be suspended until the end of the year.

Read more …

“Americans were surprised when they heard Sputnik’s beeping, it’s the same with this vaccine. Russia will have got there first..”

• Russia COVID19 Vaccine Registration Expected August 12 (RT)

Moscow’s Gamelei Center could register the world’s first coronavirus vaccine on August 12, Russia’s deputy health minister has revealed. Oleg Gridnev says medical workers and the elderly will be given priority for immunization. The senior minister at the department, Mikhail Murashko, announced last week that a nationwide mass vaccination program is planned to begin in October. Murashko added that all expenses will be covered by the government. “The registration of the vaccine developed at the Gamelei Center will take place on August 12,” Gridnev told journalists in Ufa on Friday morning, as cited by RIA Novosti. “Now the last stage, the third, is underway. This is the testing part and is extremely important. We have to understand that the vaccine itself must be safe.”

The Health Ministry, in an official statement, clarified that “the documents required for registration of the vaccine developed by the Gamelei Center, including data from clinical trials, are under examination. The issue of its registration will be decided upon the results of the examination.” Clinical trials of the formula began at Moscow’s Sechenov University on June 18. In a study involving 38 volunteers, it passed safety protocols. It was observed that all those who took part developed immunity to the infection. The speed with which Russia has managed to research and approve a formula has raised some eyebrows in the West, but Vadim Tarasov, a top scientist at Sechenov, said the country had a head start as it has spent the last 20 years developing skills in this field and trying to understand how viruses transmit.

The haste is fairly easy to grasp when you consider the effect Covid-19 has had on the world’s largest country. With more than 870,000 cases, it is among the four countries worst affected by the epidemic, along with the US, Brazil, and India. Russia’s 14,725 fatalities is the 11th highest in the world, although when measured per capita, the death rate ranks 47th, below Germany, but above Austria. The technology behind the Russian vaccine is based on adenovirus, the common cold. Created artificially, the vaccine proteins replicate those of Covid-19, triggering “an immune response similar to that caused by the coronavirus itself,” Tarasov said. In other words, immunization is similar to having survived the virus, but without its life-threatening risks.

Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which has bankrolled the research, last week compared the vaccine discovery process to the Space Race. “Americans were surprised when they heard Sputnik’s beeping, it’s the same with this vaccine. Russia will have got there first,” he told US TV.

Read more …

Much deadlier in men. Much deadlier than the seasonal flu.

• SARS-CoV-2 Fatality Risk In A Nationwide Seroepidemiological Study (Medrxiv)

The magnitude of the infection fatality risk (IFR) of SARS-CoV-2 remains under debate. Because the IFR is the number of deaths divided by the number of infected, serological studies are needed to identify asymptomatic and mild cases. Also, because ascertainment of deaths attributable to COVID-19 is often incomplete, the calculation of the IFR needs to be complemented with data on excess mortality. We used data from a nation-wide seroepidemiological study and two sources of mortality information -deaths among laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and excess deaths- to estimate the range of IFR, both overall and by age and sex, in Spain.


The overall IFR ranged between 1.1% and 1.4% in men and 0.58% to 0.77% in women. The IFR increased sharply after age 50, ranging between 11.6% and 16.4% in men ≥80 years and between 4.6% and 6.5% in women ≥80 years. Our IFR estimates for SARS-CoV-2 are substantially greater than IFR estimators for seasonal influenza, justifying the implementation of special public health measures.

Read more …

Not the first time that the Dems cry murder over something Trump says, only to make it look like they invented it mere weeks later.

• Chuck Schumer Says Schools Must Reopen Or Economy Suffers (RT)

Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a compromise on a Covid-19 economic relief bill, but one comment from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) about schools needing to reopen has some seeing hypocrisy on the left. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Schumer addressed the press after failed negotiations with Republicans on a potential relief bill. While many of their complaints about Republicans refusing to continue robust unemployment and other government programs was to be expected, one comment from Schumer went viral as it didn’t seem to match the outrage shown to President Donald Trump when he mentioned the same thing. “If you don’t open up the schools, you’re going to hurt the economy significantly,” Schumer said, “because lots of people can’t go to work.”

The president has floated the idea of fully reopening most schools in the fall despite the coronavirus pandemic, but he has found pushback with liberal critics each and every time. Schumer’s admission that not reopening schools will hurt the economy, which the president has argued, was seen as a surprising “moment of clarity” by critics on social media who latched onto the comment. The disagreement on reopening schools comes down to federal funding. Schumer and Pelosi have argued the only way to safely let kids back into the in-person education system is through major federal funding. Trump has argued that schools in hotspots for the coronavirus should be taking precautions when reopening, but the failure to add federal funding into a Covid-19 economic package has the left and right at a standstill on the issue.

Already a heated debate, it is only bound to get more heated as the country draws nearer to the dates schools would normally open their doors again. Experts have argued since schooling is a childcare issue, keeping them closed affects not only children and employees of the education system, but also parents who cannot return to work. “Because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. They’re dying because they can’t do what they’re doing. Mothers can’t go to work because all of a sudden they have to stay home and watch their child, and fathers,” the president told CBS News last month when asked why he considered not reopening schools a “terrible decision.”

Pelosi has argued the president is “messing” with childrens’ health and risking another outbreak of the virus with his support for reopening schools. “Going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus,” she told CNN. “If there are CDC guidelines, they should be requirements.”

Read more …

Oh, we’re going to have so much fun over the nest three months. And then there may be another three months needed to count the votes. Solid entertainment into Spring 2021. And Pelosi as President.

• Trump Aides Exploring Executive Actions To Curb Voting By Mail (Pol.)

Just because Trump’s claims of rampant mail-in voting fraud aren’t supported by evidence doesn’t mean election experts aren’t concerned about problems holding a presidential election during a pandemic. It’s unknown whether the United States Postal Service can handle a surge of mail-in ballots in a timely fashion, and other officials have cautioned about long lines and a shortage of workers at in-person polling stations, which have been limited during the coronavirus outbreak. Some have predicted the crush of remote voting could mean a final winner in the presidential race between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden won’t be known for days or even weeks.

Democrats are pushing for $25 billion for USPS in the next coronavirus recovery bill to help address those concerns, but it remains a source of disagreement with Republicans. There have already been some some notable delays in down-ballot elections during the pandemic, including one New York race this summer. Six weeks after a Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat, all of the ballots have yet to be counted. “This is a rare case where the president is not overstating the case,” argued Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has sued in North Carolina and Pennsylvania over the accuracy of voting rolls. “Frankly he’s understating the problem that I think we are going to face on Election Day. The system is going to break.”

The Trump campaign is holding events touting its legal actions on voting rules. And privately, the White House is debating possible further action, according to two people familiar with the situation. The White House declined to comment on whether Trump would be signing an executive order on the issue. “All Americans deserve an election system that is secure and President Trump is highlighting that Democrats’ plan for universal mail-in voting would lead to fraud,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews. “While Democrats continue to call for a radical overhaul of our nation’s voting system, President Trump will continue to work to ensure the security and integrity of our elections.”

Read more …

It’s just like a biblical jubilee.

• No Payment, No Problem: Bizarre New World of Consumer Debt (WS)

The New York Fed released a doozie of a household credit report. It summarized what individual lenders have been reporting about their own practices: If you can’t make the payments on your mortgage, auto loan, credit card debt, or student loan, just ask for a deferral or forbearance, and you won’t have to make the payments, and the loan won’t count as delinquent if it wasn’t delinquent before. And even if it was delinquent before, you can “cure” a delinquency by getting the loan deferred and modified. No payment, no problem. Student loan borrowers were automatically rolled into forbearance under the CARES Act, and even though many students had stopped making payments, delinquency rates plunged because the Department of Education had decided to report as “current” all those loans that are in forbearance, even if they were delinquent. Yup, according to New York Fed data, the delinquency rate of student loan borrowers, though many had stopped making payments, plunged from 10.75% in Q1, to 6.97% in Q2, the lowest since 2007:

Student loan forbearance is available until September 30, and interest is waived until then, instead of being added to the loan. In a blog post, the New York Fed said that 88% of the student-loan borrowers, including private-loan borrowers and Federal Family Education Loan borrowers, had a “scheduled payment of $0,” meaning that at least 88% of the student loans were in some form of forbearance. Until September 30. And then what? And because delinquencies in student loans, auto loans, credit card debt, and mortgages are being “cured” by putting the loans in deferral programs and modifying the delinquent loans, they become “current” loans even though no catch-up payments have been made.


Still, about 32 million people are claiming unemployment insurance. A much smaller employment shock during the Financial Crisis caused the percentage of delinquent loan balances to soar, and the percentage of “current” loan balances to plunge, to bottom out at 88% in Q4 2009. Not this time. As the percentage of delinquent loan balances fell, the percentage of “current” loan balances jumped to 96.4%, a record high in the New York Fed’s data going back to 2003. Yup, crazy world. Ally Financial reported in its 10-Q filing with the SEC for the second quarter that about 21% of its auto-loan customers were enrolled in its deferral program where they don’t have to make payments for 120 days. “The vast majority of our loan deferrals for customers in the program are scheduled to expire by the end of August 2020,” it said. And then what?

Lenders like these types of programs because they can kick the can of delinquencies down the road, and instead they have “performing loans” for which they can accrue interest which makes their investors happy, even though the customers don’t make any interest or principal payments. Bank regulators normally get nervous about deferral programs. But it appears that bank regulators have been told the shelter at home until further notice. Across all lenders, about 5.9% of the $1.34 trillion in auto loans – so close to $80 billion – are in forbearance, according to the New York Fed. And as a result, borrowers who cannot make the payment, don’t have to make it, and their loans are still deemed “current,” and the percentage of auto loans that are newly delinquent dropped to 6.29%, a record low in the data – while during the last crisis, the delinquent balances were above 10% for nearly two years:

Read more …

Yes, they’re censoring TV networks now. Scary. So is this: when Elon Musk tweeted in March that “kids are essentially immune,” Twitter clarified that his tweet did not violate its COVID-19 rules.

• Social Media Imposing Modern-Day ‘Hays Code’ On Political Speech (RCP)

Social media companies continued to assert their power over the political sphere this week, with Twitter temporarily suspending the Trump campaign’s ability to post until it removed a clip of a Fox News interview with the president regarding COVID-19. When the Democratic National Committee reposted the video to debunk it, Twitter similarly banned the DNC from tweeting until it too deleted the footage. With Twitter seemingly unbothered by the implications of suspending a presidential campaign’s account just 12 weeks before the election, what might the future hold as control of our public squares is increasingly centralized?

Twitch became the first social media platform to formally suspend a presidential candidate’s account this past June when it deleted two of President Trump’s campaign rally videos for violations of its “hateful conduct” rules. In doing so, it emphasized the divide between physical and virtual campaigning. At an in-person rally a candidate can present the policy proposals he or she believes supporters want. Virtual rallies, however, are policed by an army of moderators enforcing ever-changing acceptable speech policies, forcing politicians to self-censor or risk deletion from the online world that increasingly shapes elections.

In the case of this week’s ban, the story is all the more remarkable because the video in question was actually a cable TV interview with the nation’s leader, meaning that social platforms were in effect banning a major news organization’s reporting. As news is increasingly consumed through social media, the upshot is that the online platform’s acceptable speech rules are being applied to traditional news outlets. Additionally, rather than link the video to an outside fact check, Facebook simply deleted it as “a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation” while Twitter forced the campaign to delete the post as a “violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation.” Both companies cited as the offending statement Trump’s claim that children have “much stronger immune systems” than adults and thus “they don’t have a problem” when infected.

While oversimplifying, Trump’s claims are not that far removed from those of CDC Director Robert Redfield and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who have cited the pathogen’s significantly reduced severity in children in their calls to safely reopen schools this fall. While more measured than the “immunity” claimed by Trump, the gist of his statement — that COVID-19’s impact on children appears to be less severe than its effect on older Americans — aligns with the public statements of his medical advisers. Moreover, when Elon Musk tweeted in March that “kids are essentially immune,” Twitter clarified that his tweet did not violate its COVID-19 rules. To this date, Musk’s tweet carries no warnings or fact-checking statements from Twitter refuting it or adding additional context to his claims.

In many ways, social media platforms have become modern-day incarnations of the Hays Code that governed Hollywood from the 1930s to 1960s, establishing “morality” standards and enforcing them with an army of censors. By shaping popular culture through its control of movies, the Hays Code ensured that generations of Americans were presented an idealized world of benevolent public institutions, including police and politicians whose good works were spotlighted and any wrongdoing was punished. Moreover, as an extrajudicial speech regulation, studios could modify the rules and exempt content at will, much as social platforms do today.

Read more …

And the censoring power will only get more centralized, unless politics calls a halt to it. But then there’s always the strong links to intelligence services.

• Twitter Reportedly Joins Growing List Of Potential TikTok Suitors (ZH)

The ideological battle over the fate of TikTok is provoking fist fights in the Oval Office, and a scramble among the country’s biggest tech firms to see if they might be able to come up with a workable pitch that would allow them to win approval to buy the US operations (along with New Zealand, Australia and Canada, and possibly more) of the popular Chinese-owned social media platform – the only real obstacle to a deal at a time when corporate credit is essentially free. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the app, which the Trump Administration is threatening to shut down in the US over fears of a “national security threat” (Chinese law forces all Chinese companies to cooperate with state security forces, provoking fears that ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, might be compelled to set up a pipeline of Americans’ private information straight to Beijing), has become perhaps the biggest political football at a time of intense strain in the bilateral relationship.

But amid the chaos and the geopolitical posturing of the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, America’s tech giants apparently see an opportunity, however unlikely, to circumvent opposition to further tech-industry mergers and seal what very well might be the last major merger in the industry for quite some time. And with the world headed into a period of protracted slowdown, companies might as well take advantage of the free money, and lock in that future EPS growth while they can. Since anti-trust scrutiny is such a hot issue in the world of big tech right now, it seems every company that has reportedly engaged in “talks” about the prospects for a deal has a reason for why it might assuage regulators and lawmakers and convince both Congress and the White House to agree to the deal.

Being the smallest of the three major companies rumored to be potential suitors, Twitter obviously has the best case from a purely anti-trust standpoint (although it seems reporters keep coming up with excuses for why Microsoft or Facebook could still make it work). Plus, Twitter’s comparatively tiny $29 billion market cap means it would likely need help from outside investors – a great opportunity for Sequoia and the other big VC firms who backed ByteDance who reportedly were in talks about a deal to bring TikTok into the US under their purview. The deal would have valued TikTok at $50 billion, according to unconfirmed reports.

Read more …

How awful! Let’s do something!

• US To Cut Troop Levels In Afghanistan To ‘Less Than 5,000’ – Esper (R.)

The United States plans to cut its troop levels in Afghanistan to “a number less than 5,000” by the end of November, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in an interview broadcast on Saturday, adding detail to drawdown plans U.S. President Donald Trump announced earlier this week. The United States currently has about 8,600 troops in Afghanistan. Trump said in an interview released Monday by Axios that the United States planned to lower that number to about 4,000.

Read more …

Hey! You’re not driving enough! Want to collapse the economy or something?

• Oil Giants Cut Production By 1 Million bpd Amid Massive Writedowns (R.)

The world’s five largest oil companies collectively cut the value of their assets by nearly $50 billion in the second quarter, and slashed production rates as the coronavirus pandemic caused a drastic fall in fuel prices and demand. The dramatic reductions in asset valuations and decline in output show the depth of the pain in the second quarter. Fuel demand at one point was down by more than 30% worldwide, and still remains below pre-pandemic levels. Several executives said they took massive writedowns because they expect demand to remain impaired for several more quarters as people travel less and use less fuel due to the ongoing global pandemic that has killed more than 700,000 people.


Of those five companies, only Exxon Mobil did not book sizeable impairments. But an ongoing re-evaluation of its plans could lead to a “significant portion” of its assets being impaired, it reported, and signal the elimination of 20% or 4.4 billion barrels of its oil and gas reserves. By contrast, BP took a $17 billion hit. It said it plans to re-center its spending in coming years around renewables and less on oil and natural gas. Weak demand means oil producers must revisit business plans, said Lee Maginniss, managing director at consultants Alarez & Marsal. He said the goal should be to pump only what generates cash in excess of overhead costs. “It’s low-cost production mode through the end of 2021 for sure, and to 2022 to the extent there are new development plans being contemplated,” Maginniss said.

Read more …

Isn’t he also interfering by NOT investigating Burisma, Hunter and the clip where Joe Biden brags about blackmailing Poroshenko into firing a prosecutor?

• Zelensky Says Ukraine Staying Out Of US Internal Politics, Elections (R.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that it was a matter of Ukraine’s national security to stay out of U.S. internal politics, particularly its election. “#Ukraine did not and will not allow itself to interfere in the elections and thus harm our trusting and sincere partnership with the #USA,” he wrote on Twitter late on Saturday. Zelenskiy, 42, was a comic actor when he won a landslide election last year. But the first year of his presidency was overshadowed by Ukraine’s unwitting involvement in events that led to the impeachment of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump had unsuccessfully pressed Ukraine to launch an investigation into his Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential race, former Vice President Joe Biden.


“Never, under any circumstances, it’s acceptable to meddle in another country’s sovereign elections,” Zelenskiy wrote. Zelenskiy appealed to Ukrainian politicians to avoid any actions that could be linked to U.S. elections, nor allow themselves to try to solve any of their personal, political or business problems that way. “Ukraine’s reputation is worth much more than the reputation of any of our politicians,” the president said.

Read more …

“It is perhaps the most American of issues, and it should be one that unites us..”

Hard to read that with a straight face, let alone for him to say it.

• George W. Bush Laid the Groundwork for Today’s Immigration Nightmare (MPN)

George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, has announced he is releasing a new book called “Out of Many, One” which will celebrate America’s diversity and immigrant populations. “Our immigrant heritage has enriched America’s history. It continues to shape our society. Each generation of Americans — of immigrants — brings a renewal to our national character and adds vitality to our culture. Newcomers have a special way of appreciating the opportunities of America, and when they seize those opportunities, our whole nation benefits,” the former president said. The book, scheduled for release in March 2021 will feature 43 images of immigrants, painted by Bush himself [..]

“While I recognize that immigration can be an emotional issue, I reject the premise that it is a partisan issue. It is perhaps the most American of issues, and it should be one that unites us,” he said in a press release. “My hope is that this book will help focus our collective attention on the positive impacts that immigrants are making on our country.” With immigration becoming an increasingly hot partisan issue, the move celebrating the practice is the latest in a series of actions that Bush has taken to distance himself from the current Republican president. Both Bush and his father claimed they did not vote for Trump in 2016, leading to delight from many Democrats. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for example, yearned for a by-gone age, admitting to wishing Bush were still president, even though at the time she described him as a “total failure” in every aspect of governing.

[..] Bush bragged about greatly increasing the U.S.’ detention capacity for immigrants, using drones to patrol the area, and building 700 hundred miles of fencing and wall, which served as a stepping stone to Trump’s border plans. The increasingly militarized border mirrored the increasingly hostile rhetoric towards immigrants that dominated the Republican Party today. Bush is no stranger to covering controversial topics in his art. In 2017, he released a similar bestselling book called “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors.” In it, he painted dozens of fallen American servicemen, all of whom died fighting in wars he started under false pretenses and has expressed no remorse for doing so. Neither Bush nor the great number of outlets who praised the book appeared at all interested in Middle Eastern victims of his policy.

Read more …

A Trojan horse in the 2020’s.

• West’s Favorite Hong Kong ‘Freedom Writer’ Is American In Yellowface (GZ)

An American man with ties to Amnesty International and key Hong Kong separatist figures has been posing online as a Hong Kong native named Kong Tsung-gan. Routinely cited as a grassroots activist and writer by major media organizations and published in English-language media, the fictitious character Kong appears to have been concocted to disseminate anti-China propaganda behind the cover of yellowface. Through Kong Tsung-gan’s prolific digital presence and uninterrogated reputation in mainstream Western media, he disseminates a constant stream of content hyping up the Hong Kong “freedom struggle” while clamoring for the US to turn up the heat on China.


Whispers about Kong’s true identity have been circulating on social media among Hong Kong residents, and was even mentioned in a brief account last December by The Standard. The Grayzone spoke to several locals outraged by a deceptive stunt they considered not only unethical, but racist. They said they have kept their views to themselves due to the atmosphere of intimidation looming over the city, where self-styled “freedom fighters” harass and target seemingly anyone who speaks out publicly against them.

The Twitter user Kong Tsung-gan (@KongTsungGan) first appeared in March 2015. Kong Tsung-gan’s earliest tweets featured commentary about Tibet and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. At some point, Kong changed his Twitter avatar to a black-and-white headshot of an unknown Asian person. A search of the Wayback Machine internet archive shows that this photo remained up until sometime in late 2019. Later, Kong changed his Twitter avatar to an image depicting Liu Xia, the wife of the late Nobel Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xiaobo was a right-wing ideologue who celebrated the US wars on Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and was rewarded with the 2014 Democracy Award by the National Endowment for Democracy – the favorite meddling machine of the US government.


[..] At around the time he created his Twitter account, Kong Tsung-gan published his first Medium post. He has since filled his Medium feed with protest timelines, lists of recommended human rights books and journalism (including a link to the questionable China “expert” Adrian Zenz), and “first-hand accounts” of his protest experiences on the ground. In one account, Kong Tsung-gan claimed he attended a Band 1 government school, implying he was a native Hong Kong resident. Kong’s work has been amplified by Joshua Wong, the Hong Kong protest poster-boy who has enjoyed photo-ops with neoconservative Republican senators like Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton.

Read more …

Rich eat poor everywhere.

• Solidarity with the Germans (Varoufakis)

A recent study has confirmed that half of Germany’s population owns just 1.5% of the country’s wealth, while the top 0.1% own 20%. And inequality is getting worse. During the last two decades, the real disposable income of the poorest 50% has been falling while that of the top 1% has been rising fast, along with house and share prices. It is against this background of high and rising inequality that the mood of the German public must be understood, in particular popular resistance to the idea of a eurozone fiscal union. German workers, who are increasingly struggling to make ends meet, understandably refuse to endorse the idea of huge amounts of money being constantly channeled to citizens of other countries. The fact that Germany is getting richer overall is irrelevant to them.

From experience, they know that any money sent to Italy or Greece will probably come from them, not the top 0.1% – not to mention that it will probably end up in the pockets of vile Greek oligarchs, or of private German companies that have purchased Greek assets for next to nothing. As a result, the European Union’s recently agreed €750 billion ($880 billion) pandemic recovery fund, dubbed Next Generation EU, threatens to deepen divisions across Europe, rather than being the unifying balm of many commentators’ dreams. Setting aside the scheme’s macroeconomic insignificance, it is important to take a fresh look at it from the perspective of a typical German worker languishing among the bottom 50% of the country’s wealth distribution.

Her government, a typical German worker is told, will be liable for €100 billion of new debt that the EU will use to help foreigners recover from the pandemic’s economic fallout. “Italians will receive €80 billion from Europe’s Recovery Fund,” she hears. “Spaniards will collect €78 billion, and even the Greeks will pocket €23 billion.” And what will she get? Less than nothing. Because her government is already in fiscal consolidation mode, trying to return its budget to a small surplus by 2021, she can expect only stagnant wages and more austerity for her local hospitals, schools, roads, and other infrastructure.1 While she may well feel compassion to the Italians and Spaniards, who lost so many people to COVID-19, she will never accept repeating this exercise in debt mutualization on behalf of southern or East Europeans. The solidarity of German workers, toward whom no one shows any solidarity, has its limits – as it should.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, your support is now an integral part of the process.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

Debt Rattle August 7 2020

Aug 072020
 
 August 7, 2020  Posted by at 9:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  19 Responses »


W.H. Bartlett and J. Appleton The port of Beirut 1838

 

• Minimizing Economic Costs For COVID19 (NECSI)
• UK Shoppers Steer Clear Of High Streets Despite Lockdown Lifting (G.)
• US State Dept: Russia Pushing Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Online (JTN)
• Trump Issues Executive Orders Against Chinese Owners Of TikTok And WeChat (F.)
• Tencent Stock Plummets After Trump Announces Plan To Ban WeChat (CNN)
• TikTok Sparks National Security Concerns (Japan Times)
• Think ‘Sanctions’ Will Trouble China? You’re Stuck In The Past (Ai Weiwei)
• NRA Files Countersuit Against New York AG Letitia James
• Judge Calls For Assange Testimony In Fox News Civil Suit Over Seth Rich (JTN)
• Almost Half Of UK Charities For World’s Poorest Set To Close In A Year (G.)
• Canada’s Last Fully Intact Arctic Ice Shelf Collapses (R.)

 

 

Johns Hopkins reports over 2,000 US deaths in 24 hrs for the first time in 3 months. Worldometer says 1,203.

The US passed 5 million cases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nomiki DNC funds

 

 

New England Complex Systems Institute means Yaneer Bar-Yam.

Making trying to save your economy more important than fighting COVID is set to backfire. Don’t flatten the curve, crush it. That so many countries have failed in that regard doesn’t just mean they will get second and third waves, more importantly it means their economies will be hurt more than they already are.

• Minimizing Economic Costs For COVID19 (NECSI)

It is often claimed that there is a trade-off between containing COVID-19 and minimizing disruption to the economy, and that eliminating COVID-19 (by which we mean getting to no community transmission—i.e. no cases from unknown sources) is too costly to be worthwhile. Here, we examine the validity of these claims.


We consider a space of policy action in which a country (or state) decreases its number of cases per day by reducing the reproductive number R below 1 for a duration of its choosing and then maintains thereafter a constant number of cases per day. The question is what is the right level at which to maintain this constant number of cases per day. The essential idea is that there are two strategies: 1) an elimination strategy in which R<1 is maintained until there is no more community transmission and after which the country reopens (save for targeted responses in specific locations to combat cases that are imported), and 2) a steady-state strategy, in which R<1 is maintained for some period of time but not long enough to eliminate community transmission and after which R=1 is maintained nationwide.

The elimination strategy requires a greater upfront cost, since R<1 is maintained for a longer duration, but requires lower costs thereafter since economic activity in the country can largely return to normal, with the exception of targeted measures in specific locations in the event of a second outbreak caused by an imported case. The steady-state strategy, on the other hand, requires the costly maintenance of R=1 nationwide in order for cases not to rise; if community transmission is not eliminated and R=1 is not maintained, a second wave will occur sooner or later, as has already occurred in many countries that have not yet chosen the elimination strategy. Because of the long time during which a country must maintain R=1 under the steady-state strategy, it is worthwhile even from a purely economic perspective for a country in almost all cases to instead choose the elimination strategy, despite its greater short-term costs.

Read more …

As reported numerous times, it’s not the lockdowns that hurt economies most, it’s people being afraid to get infected. Look at the Swedish GDP graph: no lockdown, but a huge fall.

• UK Shoppers Steer Clear Of High Streets Despite Lockdown Lifting (G.)

Shoppers continued to stay away from UK high streets last month despite the reopening of non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants following the lifting of lockdown measures. The number of visitors to UK retail destinations dropped by 39.4% in July compared with the same month a year ago, according to figures from Springboard, a data company that tracks footfall at consumer hotspots. Despite an improvement of almost a fifth from June, in the best month for visitor numbers since February, the figures suggest intense pressure remains for the high street as people continued to stay away from town and city centres amid the ongoing health risks from Covid-19.

Non-essential shops began reopening in England and Northern Ireland in mid-June, and in Wales and Scotland later that month. Hotels, pub and restaurants in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland followed suit in July, though customers were only allowed back inside Welsh pubs and cafes this week. With social distancing measures in place, consumers are now gradually returning to towns and city centres. However, Springboard said that during the first full month without tough lockdown measures, bricks and mortar destinations only managed to attract six out of every 10 people who visited last year.

The latest snapshot comes after growing numbers of big high street names announce a raft of shop closures and job losses, as retailers, pubs, hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions face a sharp decline in income caused by the pandemic. Consumers are increasingly spending online, while a lack of tourists from overseas and office workers venturing into town and city centres has had an impact on visitor numbers. The figures precede the launch of the government’s eat out to help out restaurant discount scheme, which has led to a sharp rise in visitor numbers since the start of August. However, coronavirus infections are starting to increase in some parts of Britain, leading to local lockdowns and fuelling concern among consumers.

Read more …

Of course they do. And they’re stupid and ugly too, all 150 million of them.

But look on the bright side: at least they give both sides of America, who are ready to start shooting each other, that one elusive thing they can agree on.

• US State Dept: Russia Pushing Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Online (JTN)

U.S. officials contend that Russia is employing an online operation – including the disseminating of conspiracy theories and disinformation – to create confusion about the coronavirus, according to a new State Department report. The report described a Russian-based misinformation cycle that peddles sensationalist information via U.S. social media conversations and proxy websites. The department found that the Kremlin has focused its most recent efforts on conspiracy theories about the pandemic. The sites appear as standard-seeming news outlets, but in reality are tied to the Kremlin and Russian state-funded media. State-funded media outlets in Russia often publish similar stories to the ones seen on these deceptive sites.


Furthermore, officials in China and Iran, in addition to Russia, often share the claims found on these sites on their social media feeds, the report found. The head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, Lea Gabrielle, told AP that what makes the Russian disinformation strategy effective is that “it’s difficult for the average person online to look at these sites and know the Russian affiliation.” Most of the sites examined by the State Department were directly connected to the Kremlin in one way or another. One site, Canadian-based Global Research, frequently publishes articles written by fabricated authors created by the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence service. A different site, NewsFront, is registered to the Russian government.

Read more …

Remember that Facebook, Google et al are banned in China.

• Trump Issues Executive Orders Against Chinese Owners Of TikTok And WeChat (F.)

President Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Thursday prohibiting Americans from doing business with Beijing-based ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, as well as transactions related to the app WeChat with its owner, the Chinese tech giant Tencent, beginning September 20, in an effort to bar the social media platforms from the U.S. due to national security concerns. Both orders are set to take effect in 45 days, though they will likely be challenged in court. Microsoft is in talks to purchase the operations of TikTok in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, a deal that Trump says he would support after initially expressing disapproval, and the two sides are hoping to complete a deal by September 15, which is before the 45-day deadline (at least three other companies are also vying to purchase TikTok).


The Trump administration had been threatening such a move for weeks over national security concerns, and on Friday the president told reporters on Air Force One he would “ban” the video-sharing platform from the U.S. In the orders, the president accused the companies of providing the Chinese government with access to Americans’ data and personal information, “allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.” The White House also alleged that the Chinese government is monitoring WeChat messages to keep tabs on Chinese nationals in the U.S. WeChat, a messaging and payments app that has over a billion users, is one of the crown jewels for Tencent, which also has investments in American companies such as Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, and Reddit.

Read more …

Tencent is huge, it passed the $500 billion valuation back in 2018. WeChat has a billion users, all outside of China.

• Tencent Stock Plummets After Trump Announces Plan To Ban WeChat (CNN)

Tencent stock plunged on Friday after US President Donald Trump moved to ban WeChat, a social media app owned by the Chinese tech giant. Shares in Tencent plummeted as much as 10% in Hong Kong, before paring back some of those losses — though the stock was still down nearly 6% in afternoon trade. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index (HSI) fell 1.8%. The fall came after Trump issued executive orders that would ban WeChat and TikTok, the short-form video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, from operating in the United States in 45 days if they are not sold by their parent companies.

Trump had already said that he would ban TikTok if a deal for the app is not reached with an American company, but the inclusion of WeChat indicates that Washington is broadening its efforts to restrict some Chinese apps from operating in the United States. The moves to ban the apps represent an “unprecedented intervention by the US government in the consumer technology sector,” according to Paul Triolo, head of geotechnology at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.It also marks the first time the government “has attempted to ban a software application running on millions of mobile phones” in the United States, Triolo wrote in a note on Friday.

A WeChat ban would be a blow to the Chinese diaspora, students and others in the United States who rely on the app to communicate with family, friends and business partners in China. WeChat is the overseas version of Tencent’s widely popular Chinese messaging app Weixin. The app provides a range of services, including instant messaging and the ability to send money to other users. According to the order, a ban would apply to “any transaction that is related to WeChat” made by any person or “any property” subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

Read more …

View from Japan.

• TikTok Sparks National Security Concerns (Japan Times)

Maybe it is a generational thing, but I don’t get TikTok. The social media app allows users to share brief (15-second) videos — as if I need more opportunities to shorten my attention span. I must be an outlier, though: It is one of the most popular apps of the last two years, with a reported 2 billion downloads, and has 10 million users in Japan, 110 million in the United States and 200 million in India (before it was banned in that country). That extraordinary growth has turned its parent, ByteDance, which acquired the app in 2017, into one of the world’s most valuable startup companies, with a value approximating $150 billion.

Its popularity reflects the creativity it nurtures — and a user’s ability to monetize his or her audience. Followers can send money to video creators they like: Tens of millions of dollars have been “gifted” in the U.S. alone in the last two years. [..] In theory, TikTok poses three distinct risks. The first is that the app is a Trojan horse that can surveil users. That theoretical concern became real a few months ago when researchers discovered that the app accessed users’ clipboards, which could expose sensitive data, including passwords. The company blamed anti-spam features in the software and quickly disabled them. Strike 1.

The second concern is one now raised with every piece of Chinese information technology, whether it’s hardware or software: Because the company is subject to Chinese law, Beijing can and will gain access to all user information it has. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that people should download the app only if they want their “private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.” Again, researchers examined the app and concluded that TikTok’s data collection is consistent with that of similar applications. Will Strafach, an iOS security researcher, was cited in Wired magazine saying that “in context, TikTok appears to be pretty tame compared to other apps.”

Read more …

Ai Weiwei is a unique voice on China. “In the 1960s Mao said: “Cut us off? Go ahead – eight years, 10 years, China has everything.“

• Think ‘Sanctions’ Will Trouble China? You’re Stuck In The Past (Ai Weiwei)

The Trump administration has floated the idea of sanctioning Chinese officials and members of the Communist party of China. Before we ask whether this is a good idea, let’s ask how Sino-US relations got to this stage. The US cold war with the Soviet Union was over ideology, but today’s standoff with China is different. The Chinese state has no ideology, no religion, no moral agenda. It continues wearing socialist garb but only as a face-saving pretence. It has, in fact, become a state-capitalist dictatorship. What the world sees today is a contest between the US system of free-market capitalism and Chinese state capitalism. How should we read this chessboard?

The post-Mao dictatorship in China has lived by the principle of “repress at home and be open to the world”. It has imported knowhow from abroad. There are an estimated 360,000 Chinese students currently enrolled who have come through America’s open door. Over 40 years, at least a million have returned to China and fed their new technical knowledge into the existing authoritarian structures that have built the dictatorship. It might be the most momentous personnel transfer in history. [..] But did capitalist competition, that ravenous machine that can chew up anything, change China? The regime’s politics did not change a whit. What did change was the US, whose business leaders now approached the Chinese dictatorship with obsequious smiles.

Here, after all, was an exciting new business partner: master of a realm in which there were virtually no labour rights or health and safety regulations, no frustrating delays because of squabbles between political parties, no criticism from free media, and no danger of judgment by independent courts. For European and US companies doing manufacture for export, it was a dream come true. Money rained down on parts of China, it is true. But the price was to mortgage the country’s future. Society fell into a moral swamp, devoid of humanity and difficult to escape. Meanwhile, the west made their adjustments. They stopped talking about liberal values and gave a pass to the dictatorship, in which Deng Xiaoping’s advice of “don’t confront” and Jiang Zemin’s of “lie low and make big bucks” made fast economic growth possible.

[..] Are sanctions the way to go? A foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing recently remarked words to the effect that the US and China are so economically interlocked that they would amount to self-sanctions. The US, moreover, would be no match for China in its ability to endure suffering. And there he was correct: in dictatorships, sacrifices are not borne by the rulers. In the 1960s Mao said: “Cut us off? Go ahead – eight years, 10 years, China has everything.” A few years later Mao had nuclear weapons and was not afraid of anyone.

Read more …

No love lost for the NRA here, but c’mon, less than three months before the elction, the Democrat DA for New York squeezes Deutsche to fork over Trump’s tax records and the Democrat AG of New York all of a sudden goes after the NRA?! Both cases couldn’t have waited a few months? And nobody mentions election tampering?

• NRA Files Countersuit Against New York AG Letitia James

The National Rifle Association sued New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday — the same day she brought a case to break up the pro-gun group — claiming she has misused her office to go after the organization for political reasons. “There can be no doubt that the James’s actions against the NRA are motivated and substantially caused by her hostility toward the NRA’s political advocacy,” the Albany Federal court lawsuit alleges. James made a campaign promise to investigate the NRA’s legitimacy as a non-profit organization and carried that torch after she was elected for the AG post because she disagrees with its politics, the suit charges. James “maligned” the group “without a single shred of evidence, nor any sincere belief, that the NRA was violating the New York Not-For-Profit Corporation Law, or any other law,” the court documents allege.

Once in office, James began “to deliver on her campaign promises to retaliate against the NRA for constitutionally protected speech on issues that James opposes,” the court documents allege. The NRA alleges it was forewarned by former AG Eric Schneiderman about a possible investigation into the group, prompting the organization to undertake “a top-to-bottom compliance review of its operations and governance.” And now its “finances are more robust than ever, and it operates to a high standard of compliance” with the law, the court papers claim. This ruffled feathers with some connected to the NRA, who were “discontented with the principled path it had chosen” and it even prompted litigation against the NRA’s former advertising agency Ackerman McQueen, the court papers charge.

And when James then launched her investigation of the NRA in April 2019, three months after taking office, the NRA says it cooperated, providing documents and testimony from employees. “Despite hopes that playing by the rules would procure a just outcome, the NRA has not been treated fairly by James’ office,” the suit says. “James’s threatened, and actual, regulatory reprisals are a blatant and malicious retaliation campaign against the NRA and its constituents based on her disagreement with the content of their speech,” the lawsuit alleges. “This wrongful conduct threatens to destabilize the NRA and chill the speech of the NRA, its members, and other constituents.”

Read more …

What’s in it for #julianAssange?

• Judge Calls For Assange Testimony In Fox News Civil Suit Over Seth Rich (JTN)

A U.S. federal judge has asked the U.K. to assist in facilitating the testimony of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a civil suit against Fox News brought by the parents of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn said in a filing on Wednesday that Assange’s evidence “cannot be secured except by the intervention of the English courts,” and that such intervention “would serve to further the international interests of justice and judicial cooperation.” At issue is a civil lawsuit brought by the parents of Rich, who worked in the DNC’s voter expansion division. Rich was shot and killed in July 2016 in Washington, D.C., in what police suspect was a botched robbery.

Conspiracy theories following Rich’s murder alleged that he had been involved in the hacking and subsequent leaking of DNC emails prior to death. The emails were published in part by WikiLeaks. After Rich’s death, Fox News reported that he had had contact with Assange prior to his death. The cable news network subsequently retracted the article, claiming it had not been properly vetteed prior to publication. The following year, Rich’s parents brought suit against Fox over the article, claiming the network had perpetrated intentional infliction of emotional distress against them. Fox in turn has argued that, retraction notwithstanding, the article was not a “sham” as alleged by the plaintiffs.

In her request Wednesday, Netburn said that “evidence regarding the source of the leaked DNC emails and the communications (if any) between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks will be highly material to Fox’s contentions.” “Mr. Assange, as founder of WikiLeaks, is exceptionally suited to provide testimony that will be highly relevant to these issues,” Netburn wrote.

Read more …

The only charisties that will be left are the ones run like global corporations. With a CEO who makes $1 million a year and volunteers who do all the work. That’s bad news for the people who rely on them.

• Almost Half Of UK Charities For World’s Poorest Set To Close In A Year (G.)

Nearly half of the UK’s small charities working with the world’s poorest people expect to close within the next 12 months due to lack of financial support, a survey has found. Despite most of them seeing a spike in demand for their services during Covid-19, 15% of the charities will be forced to shut their doors within the next six months, and 45% within a year, according to data from the Small International Development Charities Network (SIDCN). The pandemic – predicted to force one in 10 UK charities into bankruptcy by the end of 2020 – has delivered a triple whammy to smaller overseas charities, according to SIDCN. British charities working abroad have not been eligible to apply for the UK government coronavirus community support fund, and many British funders have amended their giving criteria to donate to projects based solely in the UK.

The Department for International Development (DfID)’s merger with the Foreign Office and the subsequent £2.9bn cut to the 2020 overseas aid programme have left little room for small charities to function, said CEO Rita Chadha of the Small Charities Coalition, which supports more than 100 small NGOs. “There are over 10,000 small international charities with an income of under £1m in the UK,” said Chadha. “Their work rarely gets noticed beyond those that they directly work with, but their impact is huge. Helping young girls get an education, providing micro grants for businesses, and investing in clean drinking water is what makes us collectively safer and better. Covid-19 has proven we can no longer afford to think just local.”

[..] SIDCN, which surveyed 53 small charities/nonprofits working overseas with a maximum annual income of £1m, found that 72% had seen an increased demand for their services during the pandemic, with 57% having had to postpone programmes or projects. “The lack of any support for international charities has been debilitating,” one charity head told researchers. “We have had to close the office and cut staff and staff hours but the demands on our now-reduced team have only increased. The amount of funding for immediate partner Covid needs is paltry,”

Read more …

While you weren’t looking.

• Canada’s Last Fully Intact Arctic Ice Shelf Collapses (R.)

The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said on Thursday. The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut. “Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up,” the Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter when it announced the loss on Sunday. “Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf.

The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometers. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometers. “This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s disintegrated, basically,” Copland said. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate for the last 30 years, due to a process known as Arctic amplification. But this year, temperatures in the polar region have been intense. The polar sea ice hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years. Record heat and wildfires have scorched Siberian Russia.

Summer in the Canadian Arctic this year in particular has been 5 degrees Celsius above the 30-year average, Copland said. That has threatened smaller ice caps, which can melt quickly because they do not have the bulk that larger glaciers have to stay cold. As a glacier disappears, more bedrock is exposed, which then heats up and accelerates the melting process. “The very small ones, we’re losing them dramatically,” he said, citing researchers’ reviews of satellite imagery. “You feel like you’re on a sinking island chasing these features, and these are large features. It’s not as if it’s a little tiny patch of ice you find in your garden.”

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, your support is now an integral part of the process.

Thank you.

 

 

Beirut August 2020.

 

 

Carl Sagan 1995

 

 

Let all souls here rest in peace; for we shall not repeat the evil.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

Debt Rattle August 6 2020

Aug 062020
 
 August 6, 2020  Posted by at 10:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  17 Responses »


Laurits Andersen Ring At Breakfast 1898

 

• Study Finds 98 “Long-Term” COVID-19 Symptoms Including Baldness (ZH)
• Yates Throws “Rogue” Comey Under The Bus Over Flynn Investigation (ZH)
• Yates Says Comey Went ‘Rogue’ On Flynn (SAC)
• The D.C. Circuit Did Not ‘Bungle’ The General Flynn Case (F.)
• This Is My Letter to America (Michael Flynn)
• Twitter’s Comms Director Is Kamala Harris’ Former Press Secretary (DH)
• Biden Leads Trump By 3 Points In National Poll (Hill)
• Russian Bankers Seek Christopher Steele’s Testimony About His Dossier Source
• Deutsche Bank Gave Donald Trump Financial Records To New York Prosecutors (G.)
• Facebook Launches TikTok-Like Product Inside Instagram (R.)
• China’s Leaders Face Global Resistance (Asia Times)

 

 

When former ADA Sally Yates testifies in the Senate, you would expect coverage everywhere. But the MSM entirely ignores it. Compare that to Bill Barr in the House last week. So it’s not in the interest of the public to know that Yates blamed James Comey for many things that went wrong? In whose interest is it to ignore the story?

That will be the story for the next three months, and the NYT, WaPo and CNN will not tell you, unless they perceive of an angle that looks bad for Trump. Your news is pre-cooked and bland.

I’ve accepted that I need to go to the right-wing press to get some of the stories I find relevant, but I don’t want only the right wing view. Alas, there is no balanced news anymore.

 

 

We’re at almost 2 million new cases per week.

 

 

 

 

If US deaths fall under 1,000 daily, I can lose this graph. Not too relevant anyway. But over 1,000 is just too high.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No surprise for a disease that primarily affects your blood. It goes everywhere.

• Study Finds 98 “Long-Term” COVID-19 Symptoms Including Baldness (ZH)

[..] in a study published recently by the University of Indiana School of Medicine happened on a surprising finding: those who suffer from long-term symptoms of the coronavirus – a group that the researchers nicknamed “long haulers” after a Facebook group where many go for help – can experience all kinds of surprising symptoms, including baldness (for both men and women). The study was conducted by a doctor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the grassroots COVID-19 survivor group Survivor Corps using a Facebook poll that was shared with a group of “long haulers”, whom the researchers thanked for sharing their time and experience.


The CDC has identified only 17 persistent COVID-19 symptoms, but the survey of more than 1,500 patients found 98 possible symptoms, according to Dr. Natalie Lambert, an associate research professor who worked on the study. “The new symptoms our study identified include severe nerve pain, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping, blurry vision and even hair loss,” Lambert said in a written statement. While the CDC guidelines are helpful for the vast majority of COVID-19 sufferers, for those who are severely affected by the virus, a much broader world of potential symptoms opens up. Many of these symptoms aren’t included on the CDC’s list of common COVID-19 symptoms. And until now, the medical community hadn’t really recognized these symptoms as potentially tied to SARS-CoV-2.

In the report, the authors wrote that “the mismatch between the health problems people are experiencing and the information that they can find from official health sources is noticeable and a potential cause for concern,” outlining the motivation for their study. To be sure, media reports have documented a degree of versatility in virus symptoms. Some seriously ill patients experienced damage to their hearts along with the lungs and the vascular system – these symptoms, and the puzzle they presented for epidemiologists, were widely reported. [..] other symptoms, including “brain, whole body, joints, eye, and skin symptoms are also frequent-occurring health problems for people recovering from COVID-19”, [the team] wrote in the study. Another finding of the survey is that many “long haulers” who suffer from these extended symptoms report high levels of pain – 26.5% reported painful symptoms.

Read more …

Plenty headlines suggesting she told lie after lie. Let’s see if she gets called on them.

• Yates Throws “Rogue” Comey Under The Bus Over Flynn Investigation (ZH)

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates threw former FBI Director James ‘higher loyalty’ Comey under the bus on Wednesday, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI’s January, 2017 interview of former national security adviser Michael Flynn was done without her authorization – and she was upset when she found out about it. “I was upset that Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally,” Yates said. We would note that Yates wasn’t too upset to warn the incoming Trump administration about Flynn just 48 hours after the FBI launched a perjury trap against him. Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Yates: “Did Comey go rogue?” – to which Yates replied “You could use that term, yes.”

“Yates said she also took issue with Comey for not telling her that Flynn’s communications with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were being investigated and that she first learned about this from President Barack Obama during an Oval Office meeting. Yates said she was “irritated” with Comey for not telling her about this earlier. That meeting, which took place on Jan. 5, 2017, was of great interest to Graham, who wanted to know why Obama knew about Flynn’s conversations before she did. Graham and other Republicans have speculated that Obama wanted Flynn investigated for nefarious purposes. Yates claimed that this was not the case, and explained why Obama was aware of the calls at the time.” -Fox News

Yates testified that Obama wanted to find out why the Kremlin suddenly backed down from threats to retaliate against sanctions over 2016 election meddling, leading to the DOJ’s discovery of the communications between Flynn and the ambassador, Sergei Kislyak. “The purpose of this meeting was for the president to find out whether – based on the calls between Ambassador Kislyak and Gen. Flynn – the transition team needed to be careful about what it was sharing with Gen. Flynn,” said Yates – who suggested that the meeting was not about influencing an investigation, which she added would have “set off alarms for me.”

Yates was also asked whether former VP Joe Biden brought up the 1799 Logal Act at a January 5 Oval Office meeting about the Flynn investigation, which prohibits American citizens from communicating with foreign governments or officials without authorization “in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.” Yates said she couldn’t recall if Biden mentioned it – but had a vague recollection of Comey bringing it up either at the Oval Office meeting or later. Later during testimony, Yates said that she had no idea that the FISA applications to spy on the Trump campaign were riddled with false evidence – and also denied knowledge that her own deputy, Bruce Ohr, had facilitated meetings between the FBI and UK operative Christopher Steele, who assembled the infamous Clinton-funded dossier which was used to support the FISA warrant against former campaign aide Carter Page. Yates claimed that if she knew this was the case, she wouldn’t have signed off on the warrant.

Read more …

“..the FBI by January, 2017 had issued an internal classified memorandum that revealed that the bureau had no derogatory information on Flynn, nor anyone associated with him.”

• Yates Says Comey Went ‘Rogue’ On Flynn (SAC)

Graham wanted to know why Obama knew about Flynn’s conversations before Yates did. Graham’s concerns, then and now, are based on the long tumultuous history between Obama and Flynn during the last years of his tenure. That, coupled with mounting evidence that the FBI continued to pursue Flynn and members of Trump’s team based on no evidence or falsified evidence. Flynn, who was the director of the Defense Intelligence agency during the Obama administration, had confronted Obama on his failure to adequately inform the American people about the growing threat of terrorist organizations. Moreover, Flynn had vehemently disagreed with Obama’s Iran policy and was eventually fired by Obama from his position at the DIA.

Yates, however, said that Obama was aware of the Flynn calls at the time because “the purpose of this meeting was for the president to find out whether – based on the calls between Ambassador Kislyak and Gen. Flynn – the transition team needed to be careful about what it was sharing with Gen. Flynn.” [..] Yates was also angry that the agents sent by Comey – Special Agent Peter Strzok and Special Agent Joe Pientka – did not inform Flynn that they were in possession of the conversations he had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during December, 2016.


Testimony and information obtained during numerous congressional and DOJ Inspector General investigations reveals that the agents appeared to attempt to entrap Flynn. Ironically, Flynn was so open about his conversation and many other topics that the agents returned to FBI headquarters believing the three-star general did not lie to them. However, that didn’t stop Strzok, the lead agent, from continuing to pursue an unsubstantiated case against Flynn that was not predicated on any real tangible evidence. In fact, the FBI by January, 2017 had issued an internal classified memorandum that revealed that the bureau had no derogatory information on Flynn, nor anyone associated with him.

Read more …

Rare coverage from someone outside the right, in this case Forbes.

• The D.C. Circuit Did Not ‘Bungle’ The General Flynn Case (F.)

A week ago Monday former federal appellate judge Michael Luttig took to The New York Times to attack the D.C. Circuit’s handling of the General Michael Flynn case. In an at times misleading and oddly vituperative op-ed, Mr. Luttig accuses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of not having “understood its own case” and of “bungl[ing] perhaps the most consequential political constitutional case in recent memory.” Serious charges from a respected sometime jurist would raise concerns if they were true; fortunately, a closer examination reveals that they are not. Judge Neomi Rao’s well-crafted and carefully reasoned opinion for the court, which veteran Judge Karen Henderson joined in full, covers the legal ground quite capably.

But it is worth debunking some of the external criticism targeting the Flynn panel majority’s mandamus ruling, if only to counteract any misimpression that something untoward happened in this important—albeit unduly politicized—appeal. Mr. Luttig’s piece gives a breezy description of how federal district court judge Emmet Sullivan responded to the government’s Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss the charges against General Flynn. He writes: “Judge Sullivan scheduled a hearing to determine whether to give that approval. Mr. Flynn, in turn, asked the higher court, the Court of Appeals, to dismiss his prosecution now, before Judge Sullivan decides whether to dismiss it.” Reading that abbreviated account, which skips much controversial context, could leave an observer wondering what all the hubbub is about.


Luttig does not just bury the lede, he practically buries the whole story. He omits how far out in the future the hearing was scheduled. He never mentions Judge Sullivan’s appointment of an amicus to “present arguments in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss.” Nor that this amicus, retired federal district judge John Gleeson, had just published a Washington Post op-ed calling for harsher treatment of Flynn. Nor does Luttig note Sullivan’s highly unusual invitation for other amici to weigh in on charges in a criminal case. Nor that Sullivan had turned away some two dozen requests earlier in the proceedings for amicus briefs in Flynn’s favor. He also neglects to point out that Sullivan asked his appointed amicus to assess whether Gen. Flynn perjured himself (either in pleading guilty or in seeking to withdraw his guilty plea). Finally, he fails to describe Mr. Gleeson’s apparent intention to investigate conduct by the Department of Justice (DOJ) outside the record.

Read more …

The man’s been treated really badly, but what kind of letter is this?

• This Is My Letter to America (Michael Flynn)

We are witnessing a vicious assault by enemies of all that is good, and our president is having to act in ways unprecedented in decades, maybe centuries. The biblical nature of good versus evil cannot be discounted as we examine what is happening on the streets of America. It’s Marxism in the form of antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement versus our very capable and very underappreciated law enforcement professionals, the vast majority of whom are fighting to provide us safe and secure homes, streets and communities. When the destiny of the United States is at stake, and it is, the very future of the entire world is threatened. As Christians, shouldn’t we act? We recognize that divine Providence is the ultimate judge of our destiny.

Achieving our destiny as a freedom-loving nation, Providence compels us to do our part in our communities. It encourages us in this battle against the forces of evil to face our fears head-on. No enemy on earth is stronger than the united forces of God-fearing, freedom-loving people. We can no longer pretend that these dark forces are going to go away by mere prayer alone. Prayers matter, but action is required. This action is needed at the local, state and federal levels. Action is also required in the economic, media, clerical and ecclesiastical realms. Decide how you can act within your abilities. Stand up and state your beliefs. Be proud of who you are and what you stand for.


And face, head-on, those community “leaders” who are willing to allow dark forces to go beyond peaceful protests and destroy and violate your safety and security. Churches and houses of worship must return to normal. We invite everyone of goodwill to not shirk their responsibilities and instead act in a fraternal fashion. If for no other reason or with no other ability, act in a spirit of charity. We cannot disrespect or disregard natural law along with our own religious liberties and freedoms. I am witnessing elderly people lose their connection to all that is good in their lives: connections to their faith, their families and their individual freedoms, especially the simple act of attending church, something they’ve been doing for decades.

Read more …

Harris not long ago wanted Trump thrown off Twitter altogether.She got halfway there.

• Twitter’s Comms Director Is Kamala Harris’ Former Press Secretary (DH)

The communications director for Twitter, who happens to be Kamala Harris’ former press secretary, tweeted on Wednesday that the platform has required President Donald Trump’s campaign delete a tweet containing an interview with the president from their official account. Communications Director Nick Pacilio wrote that “the original Tweet from @TeamTrump is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation, and we’ve required removal.” The removal order comes after President Donald Trump quote tweeted their post, which was a video that they say contained “coronavirus misinformation.” During the interview, President Trump stated that kids are “almost immune” to Covid-19.


“The Tweet you referenced is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation. The account owner will be required to remove the tweet before they can tweet again,” Twitter said in a statement to USA TODAY. Facebook has also removed the video, citing a similar reason. “This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation,” Facebook said in a statement. The interview in question was with Fox & Friends and aired Wednesday morning. When asked during the White House briefing later that day about his assertion, Trump said: “If you look at children, they are able to throw it off very easily and it’s an amazing thing, because some flus they don’t, they get very sick. … They seem to be able to handle it very well, and that’s according to every statistic.”

Huber

Read more …

That’s a whole lot less than all the double digit polls I’ve seen.

• Biden Leads Trump By 3 Points In National Poll (Hill)

If the 2020 Presidential election were held today, 43 percent of voters would vote for former Vice President Joe Biden while 40 percent would chose President Trump, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s lead fell from a 7 percentage points in a July 17-20 survey to 3 percentage points in this August 2-5 poll. Five percent of voters said they would cast their ballots for someone else if the election were held today, while 3 percent said they do not plan to vote. Nine percent of registered voters in the poll are still unsure. The survey found Trump made gains among voters in two key demographics.


Support among Midwestern voters rose from 38 percent two weeks ago to 42 percent in this most recent poll. Support for Biden among the same group fell from 45 percent to 39 percent. The president also edges out Biden among independents in the latest poll, with 35 percent support, a 4 percentage point increase from last survey. By contrast, 33 percent of independents prefer Joe Biden as their candidate for president. The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 2,850 registered voters between August 2 and 5. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.84 percentage points.

Read more …

And how is this not a story? It’s like Concord Management all over again. But if only the Daily Caller reports it, I’m supposed to ignore it too?

• Russian Bankers Seek Christopher Steele’s Testimony About His Dossier Source (DC)

Lawyers for a trio of Russian bankers are seeking testimony in the U.S. from Christopher Steele regarding his contacts with Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst said to be the primary source for the former British spy’s infamous dossier on President Donald Trump. The bankers, who own Alfa Bank, asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to submit a formal request to the British court system to compel Steele’s testimony in a defamation lawsuit against opposition research firm Fusion GPS and its co-founder, Glenn Simpson. Lawyers for the bankers said in the court filing that information from Steele regarding Danchenko is “relevant to the reliability” of the dossier. It could also show whether Fusion GPS knew that Danchenko was Steele’s source, and whether information in the dossier regarding Alfa Bank was inaccurate before they shared it with journalists in 2016.

The Alfa Bank owners, Mikhail Fridman, Peter Aven and German Khan, are suing Fusion GPS and Simpson, over a Sept. 14, 2016 memo from the dossier that alleged the bankers had an “illicit” relationship with Vladimir Putin, and had bribed him for decades. Lawyers for the bankers are required to submit a request for international judicial assistance because the targets are all British citizens and are not required to comply with subpoenas filed in the U.S. Danchenko, a Russian national who lives in Washington, D.C., was identified last month as Steele’s primary source of information for the dossier. Lawyers for the Alfa trio said that Steele’s interactions with Danchenko are relevant to the lawsuit because the information would show whether the ex-spy distributed the dossier “negligently or recklessly.” “It is expected that Mr. Steele will be able to provide crucial and relevant testimony on a number of topics,” the lawyers said in the court filing.


They are seeking Steele’s testimony and documents regarding communications with Danchenko from April 1, 2016 to Oct. 3, 2017. They are also seeking information from Steele’s business partner, Christopher Burrows, a Fusion GPS contractor named Edward Baumgartner and Sir Andrew Wood, a former British diplomat who served as a conduit between Steele and Sen. John McCain. Fusion GPS hired Steele on behalf of the law firm for the Clinton campaign in April 2016 to investigate Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia. Steele, a former MI6 officer, asked Danchenko to collect any information he could on Trump. Danchenko worked as an independent contractor for Steele’s London-based consulting firm, Orbis Business Intelligence. Many of the dossier’s most salacious allegations have either been debunked outright or come under intense scrutiny in the three-plus years since the document was published.

Read more …

He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

• Deutsche Bank Gave Donald Trump Financial Records To New York Prosecutors (G.)

New York prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s finances previously issued a subpoena to Deutsche Bank, one of the foremost lenders to the president’s business, as part of their inquiry – and the bank complied, according to the New York Times. The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, is seeking eight years of the president’s personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted the prosecutor and his team to request the records beyond payoffs to women to silence them about alleged affairs with Trump in the past. Lawyers for Vance told a judge in New York on Monday that he was justified in demanding the records from Trump, citing public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization”.


A report emerged Wednesday that Vance’s office subpoenaed the German lender last year in what the New York Times said was a sign that their criminal investigation into Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known. The report noted that this appeared to be the first instance of a criminal inquiry involving Trump and his dealings with Deutsche Bank. The German bank, which has been a longstanding source of financing to Trump’s real estate empire, obeyed the subpoena and handed over records supplied by Trump to the bank during the course of applying for loans, the report said, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the investigation. Trump’s lawyers last month said the grand jury subpoena for the president’s tax returns was issued in bad faith and amounted to harassment.

Read more …

TikTok RipOff.

• Facebook Launches TikTok-Like Product Inside Instagram (R.)

Facebook rolled out its own version of social media rival TikTok in the United States and more than 50 other countries on Wednesday, embedding a new short-form video service called Reels as a feature within its popular Instagram app. The product immediately got uptake with several celebrities, following a push by Facebook to attract creative talent before launch: actress Jessica Alba posted a video with her family promoting her Honest Company’s masks, while comedian Mindy Kaling showed off an intentionally underwhelming quarantine “workout” routine. Reels’ debut comes days after Microsoft said it was in talks to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations from China’s ByteDance.


ByteDance has agreed to divest parts of TikTok, sources have said, under pressure from the White House, which has threatened to ban it and other Chinese-owned apps over data security concerns. The launch escalates a bruising fight between Facebook and TikTok, with each casting the other as a threat. Both have been eager to attract American teenagers, many of whom have flocked to TikTok in the last two years. Reels was first tested in Brazil in 2018 and then later in France, Germany and India, which was TikTok’s biggest market until the Indian government banned it last month following a border clash with China. Facebook also tried out a standalone app called Lasso which did not gain much traction.

Read more …

“So long as the Chinese public, out of nationalism or national loyalty, do not challenge the government narrative, they are safe.”

• China’s Leaders Face Global Resistance (Asia Times)

For years, many countries, directly or indirectly, submitted to Beijing’s power to preserve their lucrative trade with China. This bolstered the ego of not only the Communist Party of China but also Chinese netizens, making them believe in China’s power and its rise. By using the country’s economic muscle, the CPC propagated the credibility of its so-called socialism with Chinese characteristics both at home and abroad. Now, however, we have begun to see something different: the world gradually rejecting Chinese economic power. Of course, there are still several developing, relatively small, countries in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere committed to their relations with China. But does that make a big difference if China has lost its grip on powerful partners in the West?

India and the US have tightened their strategic friendship to undermine China. The British government has reversed its policy and banned Huawei from its 5G (fifth generation) telecom network. Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, has strongly condemned the new security law Beijing has imposed on Hong Kong. Sharp differences between China and the European Union have been exposed over many issues such as Hong Kong, cybersecurity and human rights. The EU has thus given a signal that it will hold a “new defensive approach toward China.” Germany was China’s most important stronghold in the EU, but it has suspended its extradition agreement with Hong Kong and closed Confucius Institutes in many of its universities.


Surprisingly, Australia has emerged as the leading voice pushing an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 and has announced a nearly US$1 billion investment in cybersecurity to challenge the CPC. In response to a Chinese incursion, Japan sent fighter jets to patrol the Senkaku Islands and joined other countries expressing concern over China’s new security law for Hong Kong. After banning 59 Chinese apps recently, India has announced a ban of 47 clones related to China-owned mobile applications. India is the biggest market for Chinese information-technology companies. Do the leaders in Beijing think that they are losing the diplomatic fight? “If you [look] from the perspective of China, it is not losing,” Dibyesh Anand, China-India geopolitical expert at the University of Westminster, said at the Oxford Tibetan Summer School Conference. “So long as the Chinese public, out of nationalism or national loyalty, do not challenge the government narrative, they are safe.”

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, your support is now an integral part of the process.

Thank you.

 

 

75 years ago today.

 

 

Obamagate

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

Debt Rattle August 3 2020

Aug 032020
 
 August 3, 2020  Posted by at 9:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  20 Responses »


W. Eugene Smith Orson Welles 1941

 

• Supporters Urge Joe Biden Not to Debate Trump (NW)
• Kansas Should Go F— Itself (Matt Taibbi)
• How Congress Maintains Endless War (Zuesse)
• White House Says Not Optimistic On Near-Term Deal For COVID Relief Bill (R.)
• The Fed Is Planning To Send Money Directly To Americans In Next Crisis (ZH)
• Fed’s Kashkari Suggests 4-6 Week Shutdown (R.)
• Tech Stock Buybacks Are Surging (ZH)
• America’s Monopoly Problem Goes Way Beyond the Tech Giants (Dayen)
• White House Puts Chinese Apps On Notice (SCMP)
• Humanity Likely Faces Rapid ‘Catastrophic Collapse’ – Study (NYP)
• How The Guardian and New York Times ‘Set Up’ Julian Assange (M.)

 

 

Every single thing about the US will from now on in evolve around party politics. But not in any way that you’ve ever seen.

 

 

Sunday numbers were quite low. But not every state and country reports anymore in the weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Hunt Sweden

 

 

They would like that, but debates are a solid tradition. So they’ll try for just the one debate, they’ll try for a format that includes a teleprompter, they’ll try for factcheckers that can interrupt Trump all the time in the same way the House did with Bill Barr.

This piece even implies that Trump beat Hillary only because he was telling lies all the time.

• Supporters Urge Joe Biden Not to Debate Trump (NW)

Democratic strategists and supporters of Vice President Joe Biden are urging him not to debate President Donald Trump in the lead-up to Election Day, citing Trump’s publicity stunts and disregard for the rules in 2016. Meanwhile Biden backers, including some conservatives, applauded the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan for cancelling their scheduled debates over COVID-19 concerns. Former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart joined several Democratic Party strategists in bluntly advising Biden, “whatever you do, don’t debate Trump.” Speaking on CNN Saturday, Lockhart said Trump shouldn’t be given another platform which will enable him to “repeat lies,” which he said occurred in the 2016 debates against Hillary Clinton.

The Trump campaign has pushed the other way and urged the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which officially oversees the events, to hold even more debates. “We saw in the debates in 2016 Hillary Clinton showed a mastery of the issues, every point she made was more honest and bested Trump,” Lockhart told CNN. “But Trump came out of the debates doing better I think because he just kept repeating the same old lies: ‘we’re going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it,’ ‘we’re going to keep all those Mexican rapists out of the country,’ and ‘we’re going to make great trade deals’ — none of these things have come to pass.” “Giving him that national forum to continue to spout — get him to 21,000 or 22,000 lies — I think just isn’t worth it for the Democrats or for Biden,” Lockhart continued.

Several opinion columns published in recent months have called for an outright cancellation of the debates, describing them — alongside the party conventions — as outdated political rituals designed purely for TV ratings. Longtime Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton senior adviser Zac Petkanas agreed with calls for Biden to back out of any and all debates with Trump in the coming months. As it stands currently, there are three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate scheduled between September 29 and October 22. “Biden shouldn’t feel obligated to throw Trump a lifeline by granting him any debates at all. This is not a normal presidential election and Trump is not a legitimate candidate,” Petkanas tweeted last week, expressing his “opinion that no one asked for.”

Mussolini

Read more …

“The difference today is that enlightened liberals are the ones mouthing this age-old anti-populist catechism.”

Thomas Frank published What’s the Matter with Kansas? in 2004. His new book is The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism.

• Kansas Should Go F— Itself (Matt Taibbi)

The new conception of populism, as popularized by historians like Richard Hofstadter, pitted the common run of voters against a growing class of elite-educated managerial professionals, philosopher-kings who set correct policy for the ignorant masses. The model of enlightened government for this new “technocratic” class of “consensus thinkers” was John Kennedy’s “Camelot” cabinet of Experts in Shirtsleeves, with Robert McNamara’s corporatized Pentagon their Shining Bureaucracy on a Hill. This vision of ideal democracy has dominated mainstream press discourse for almost seventy years.

Since the establishment of this template, Frank notes, “virtually everyone who writes on the subject agrees that populism is ‘anti-pluralist,’ by which they mean that it is racist or sexist or discriminatory in some way… Populism’s hatred for ‘the elite,’ meanwhile, is thought to be merely a fig leaf for this ugly intolerance.” Trump and Bernie Sanders both got hit with every cliché described in Frank’s book. Both were depicted as xenophobic, bigoted, emotion-laden, resistant to modernity, susceptible to foreign influence, and captured by “unrealistic” ideas they lacked the expertise to implement. At the conclusion of The People, No, Frank sums up the book’s obvious subtext, seeming almost to apologize for its implications:

“My point here is not to suggest that Trump is a “very stable genius,” as he likes to say, or that he led a genuine populist insurgency; in my opinion, he isn’t and he didn’t. What I mean to show is that the message of anti-populism is the same as ever: the lower orders, it insists, are driven by irrationality, bigotry, authoritarianism, and hate; democracy is a problem because it gives such people a voice. The difference today is that enlightened liberals are the ones mouthing this age-old anti-populist catechism.”

[..] The book’s concept also reflects the Sovietish reality of post-Trump media, which is now dotted with so many perilous taboos that it sometimes seems there’s no way to get audiences to see certain truths except indirectly, or via metaphor. The average blue-state media consumer by 2020 has ingested so much propaganda about Trump (and Sanders, for that matter) that he or she will be almost immune to the damning narratives in this book. Protesting, “But Trump is a racist,” they won’t see the real point – that these furious propaganda campaigns that have been repeated almost word for word dating back to the 1890s are aimed at voters, not politicians.

In the eighties and nineties, TV producers and newspaper editors established the ironclad rule of never showing audiences pictures of urban poverty, unless it was being chased by cops. In the 2010s the press began to cartoonize the “white working class” in a distantly similar way. This began before Trump. As Bernie Sanders told Rolling Stone after the 2016 election, when the small-town American saw himself or herself on TV, it was always “a caricature. Some idiot. Or maybe some criminal, some white working-class guy who has just stabbed three people.”

Read more …

But there’s still only one war party, which sits its fat ass across the aisles.

“Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how America’s billionaires control the U.S. Government..”

• How Congress Maintains Endless War (Zuesse)

The Intercept, 9 July 2020 – 2:45: There is “this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves, their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea what it is that the people they’ve voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and reality is enormous.” Four crucial military-budget amendments were debated in the House just now, as follows: • to block Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. • to block Trump from withdrawing 10,000 troops from Germany • to limit U.S. assistance to the Sauds’ bombing of Yemen • to require Trump to explain why he wants to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty

On all four issues, the pro-imperialist position prevailed in nearly unanimous votes — overwhelming in both Parties. Dick Cheney’s daughter, Republican Liz Cheney, dominated the debates, though the House of Representatives is now led by Democrats, not Republicans. Greenwald (citing other investigators) documents that the U.S. news-media are in the business of deceiving the voters to believe that there are fundamental differences between the Parties. “The extent to which they clash is wildly exaggerated” by the press (in order to pump up the percentages of Americans who vote, so as to maintain, both domestically and internationally, the lie that America is a democracy — actually represents the interests of the voters).

16:00: The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee — which writes the nearly $750B annual Pentagon budget — is the veteran (23 years) House Democrat Adam Smith of Boeing’s Washington State. “The majority of his district are people of color.” He’s “clearly a pro-war hawk” a consistent neoconservative, voted to invade Iraq and all the rest. “This is whom Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have chosen to head the House Armed Services Committee — someone with this record.” He is “the single most influential member of Congress when it comes to shaping military spending.” He was primaried by a progressive Democrat, and the “defense industry opened up their coffers” and enabled Adam Smith to defeat the challenger.

That’s the opening. Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government’s military budget. They’re all corrupt. And then he went, at further length, to describe the methods of deceiving the voters, such as how these very same Democrats who are actually agents of the billionaires who own the ‘defense’ contractors and the ‘news’ media etc., campaign for Democrats’ votes by emphasizing how evil the Republican Party is on the issues that Democratic Party voters care far more about than they do about America’s destructions of Iraq and Syria and Libya and Honduras and Ukraine, and imposing crushing economic blockades (sanctions) against the residents in Iran, Venezuela and many other lands.

Read more …

We saw this coming from miles away: no better opportunity for both sides to blame the other. Screw the people, it’s about power.

• White House Says Not Optimistic On Near-Term Deal For COVID Relief Bill (R.)

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Sunday he was not optimistic on reaching agreement soon on a deal for the next round of legislation to provide relief to Americans hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m not optimistic that there will be a solution in the very near term,” Meadows said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” as staff members from both sides were meeting to try to iron out differences over the bill. Democrats were standing in the way of a separate agreement to extend some federal unemployment benefits in the short-term while negotiations continue on an overall relief package, he said. “We continue to see really a stonewalling of any piecemeal type of legislation that happens on Capitol Hill,” Meadows said. “Hopefully that will change in the coming days.”


Lawmakers and the White House have been unable to reach an accord for a next round of economic relief from a pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 Americans and triggered the sharpest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Both sides said on Saturday they had their most positive talks yet. But there was no sign of movement on the biggest sticking point – $600 per week in extra federal unemployment benefits for Americans that has been a lifeline for millions of jobless Americans and expired on Friday. Asked about efforts to renew the expired emergency federal jobless benefits, Pelosi said, referring to Trump: “He’s the one standing in the way of that.”

Read more …

Because we badly need central bakers to interfere in politics. How far away are we from MMT here?

• The Fed Is Planning To Send Money Directly To Americans In Next Crisis (ZH)

Over the past decade, the one common theme despite the political upheaval and growing social and geopolitical instability, was that the market would keep marching higher and the Fed would continue injecting liquidity into the system. The second common theme is that despite sparking unprecedented asset price inflation, price as measured across the broader economy (at least using the flawed CPI metric) would remain subdued (as a reminder, the Fed is desperate to ignite broad inflation as that is the only way the countless trillions of excess debt can be eliminated and yet it has so far failed to do so).

The Fed’s failure to reach its inflation target has sparked broad criticism from the economic establishment, even though as we showed in June, deflation is now a direct function of the Fed’s unconventional monetary policies as the lower yields slide, the lower the propensity to spend. In other words, the harder the Fed fights to stimulate inflation, the more deflation and more saving it spurs as a result (incidentally this is not the first time this “discovery” was made, in December we wrote “One Bank Makes A Stunning Discovery – The Fed’s Rate Cuts Are Now Deflationary”). In short, ever since the Fed launched QE and NIRP, it has been making the situation it has been trying to “fix” even worse, all the while blowing a massive asset price bubble.


And having recently accepted that its preferred stimulus pathway has failed to boost the broader economy, the blame has fallen on how monetary policy is intermediated, specifically the way the Fed creates excess reserves which end up at commercial banks instead of “tricking down” all the way to the consumer level. To be in the aftermath of the covid pandemic shutdowns the Fed has tried to short-circuit this process, and in conjunction with the Treasury it has launched “helicopter money” which has resulted in a direct transfer of funds to US corporations via PPP loans, as well as to end consumers via the emergency $600 weekly unemployment benefits which however are set to expire unless renewed by Congress as explained last week, as Democrats and Republicans feud over which fiscal stimulus will be implemented next.

And yet, the lament is that even as the economy was desperately in need of a massive liquidity tsunami, the funds created by the Fed and Treasury (now that the US operates under a quasi-MMT regime) did not make their way to those who need them the most: end consumers. Which is why we read with great interest a Bloomberg interview published on Saturday with two former central bank officials: Simon Potter, who led the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s markets group i.e., he was the head of the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team for years, and Julia Coronado, who spent eight years as an economist for the Fed’s Board of Governors, who are among the innovators brainstorming solutions to what has emerged as the most crucial and difficult problem facing the Fed: get money swiftly to people who need it most in a crisis.


The response was striking: they two propose creating a monetary tool that they call recession insurance bonds, which draw on some of the advances in digital payments, which will be wired instantly to Americans. As Coronado explains the details, Congress would grant the Federal Reserve an additional tool for providing support—say, a percent of GDP [in a lump sum that would be divided equally and distributed] to households in a recession.

Read more …

And while we’re at it, let the Fed regulate the lockdowns too. Such monetary wizards must be good at everything.

• Fed’s Kashkari Suggests 4-6 Week Shutdown (R.)

The U.S. economy could benefit if the nation were to “lock down really hard” for four to six weeks, a top Federal Reserve official said on Sunday, adding that Congress can well afford large sums for coronavirus relief efforts. The economy, which in the second quarter suffered its biggest blow since the Great Depression, would be able to mount a robust recovery, but only if the virus were brought under control, Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If we don’t do that and we just have this raging virus spreading throughout the country with flare-ups and local lockdowns for the next year or two, which is entirely possible, we’re going to see many, many more business bankruptcies,” Kashkari said.


“That’s going to be a much slower recovery for all of us.” He said Congress is positioned to spend big on coronavirus relief efforts because the nation’s budget gap can be financed without relying on foreign borrowing, given how much Americans are saving. “Those of us who are fortunate enough to still have our jobs, we’re saving a lot more money because we’re not going to restaurants or movie theaters or vacations,” Kashkari said. “That actually means that we have a lot more resources as a country to support those who have been laid off,” he said.

Read more …

When you let this continue, you’re not trying to let the economy recover.

• Tech Stock Buybacks Are Surging (ZH)

Two months ago, we showed that contrary to conventional wisdom and corporate reps and warrants that buybacks had effectively been put on hold for the duration of the covid pandemic, not only were companies still repurchasing their shares but it was the tech names – those who have stormed higher since the March lows – that were the biggest culprits. Now, two months after we first revealed Wall Street’s worst kept secret, the Financial Times has also noticed that Corporate America is finding it hard to kick the share buyback habit, even after the US slipped into its worst recession in decades.

While total buybacks are indeed expected to drop this year as the downturn caused by coronavirus saps corporate profits, companies in the S&P 500 that have reported second-quarter earnings so far have reduced the number of their outstanding shares by an average of 0.3 per cent from the previous quarter, according to calculations from Credit Suisse. Furthermore, updates showed that some of the largest US multinationals continued to buy back their own stock or even accelerated stock repurchases and nowhere more so than the tech names we first highlighted at the end of May. Take Google’s parent company Alphabet, which spent $6.9bn on buybacks for the quarter, up 92% from a year prior, the company revealed in its earnings results last Thursday.

Microsoft, the second-largest listed US company, purchased $5.8bn of its own stock in the period, up 25% from a year earlier, and likely among the chief reasons for the stock’s amazing surge. Elsewhere, Biogen spent $2.8bn on buybacks for the period, up 17% from last year, WR Berkley, an insurer, did not buy any of its shares in the second quarter last year, but spent $97m on its stock in the period this year, and Celanese increased its planned buybacks for the year by $500m to $1.5bn in July, after selling its stake in a Japanese joint venture. Of course, the biggest source of buybacks was once again Apple, which repurchased $16BN in the second quarter, down 6% on the period last year, though by far the biggest stock repurchaser among S&P 500 companies in recent years.

Read more …

Preventing monopolies was once one of Washington’s main preoccupations.

• America’s Monopoly Problem Goes Way Beyond the Tech Giants (Dayen)

The truth is that, even if Congress somehow decreed the breakup of all four tech giants, the U.S. would still have an astounding number of industries controlled by a tiny number of firms. That’s because the structure of modern capitalism favors companies that operate at once-unimaginable scale, in the absence of a government will to prevent monopolies from forming. Lawmakers and the public should be concerned about the surveillance networks by which Facebook and Google—which dominate the digital-advertising market—track users, build data profiles on them, and serve them customized ads. But millions of rural Americans cannot access the internet to begin with, in part because telecom companies harass, fight, and induce state legislatures to pass laws restricting municipal broadband.

Across America, people send their kids to Starbucks parking lots to piggyback on the wifi and complete their homework. Amazon’s rapidly expanding e-commerce empire—and the potential consequences for Main Streets and municipal tax bases across the country—is definitely worth worrying about. But among the other forces squeezing out small retailers are dollar stores, a market segment dominated by two firms that together have about six times more outlets in America than Walmart. Last summer in Marlinton, West Virginia, I saw a Dollar General right next door to a Family Dollar. Despite the pandemic, Dollar General still plans to open 1,000 new stores in 2020. Software developers who want to sell apps to iPhone users must do so through Apple’s App Store, which spells out rules that they must follow and collects up to 30 percent of sales.

This is little different from the situation of small farmers, who must raise livestock to the exacting specifications of the meatpacking giants and can lose their livelihoods on those companies’ whims. And just as Amazon sometimes undercuts the smaller third-party sellers that use its platform, Big Agriculture competes directly with smaller suppliers; the top four hog firms, which control around two-thirds of the market, typically own farms, slaughterhouses, warehouses, and distribution trucks, every step from the pig trough to the dinner table. Whether you are shopping for pacemakers, sanitary napkins, or wholesale office supplies, you will find very few sellers. You think you have choices in grocery aisles or at car-rental counters, but the majority of consumer products come from a handful of companies.

Competition is hardly stiff when even many store brands are just renamed versions of market-leading products; at Costco, the batteries come from Duracell and the coffee from Starbucks. To focus the discussion of monopoly on the tech sector is to minimize the scope of a problem long in the making. Forty years ago, the government essentially stopped policing industry concentration. The conservative legal theorist Robert Bork—later a failed Supreme Court nominee—and his allies in the law-and-economics movement argued that any merger making businesses more efficient must be approved, and that a larger scale generally increases efficiency. Bork’s analysis gained enormous power in the courts and the Reagan administration. The lawyers and the bankers who handled mergers and acquisitions loved it.

Read more …

Pelosi and Schumer agree.

• White House Puts Chinese Apps On Notice (SCMP)

US President Donald Trump will take action against TikTok, WeChat and “countless” Chinese software companies that pose a national security threat to America, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday, apparently widening the scope of attention the US government is paying to online tech platforms developed in China. “These Chinese software companies doing business with the United States, whether it’s TikTok or WeChat, there are countless more … are feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party their national security apparatus,” Pompeo said in a Fox News interview. “It could be their facial recognition pattern, it could be information about their residence, their phone numbers, their friends who they’re connected to.”

“Those are the issues President Trump’s made clear we’re going to take care of,” Pompeo said. “He will take action in the coming days with respect to a broad array of national security risks that are presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party.” Focusing on TikTok specifically, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose department is overseeing a national security review of the company, said on Sunday that the company will need to be blocked in the US or sold to another company. Pompeo’s warning to Chinese software companies came as Trump agreed to give the Chinese internet giant ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of the popular short-video app to Microsoft, according three people familiar with matter, Reuters reported.

[..] The mobile platform, which lets users create and share 15 second videos with custom music clips, has built a huge user base in the US, particularly within younger age brackets. Mnuchin added that he had spoken with Chuck Schumer, the most senior Democrat in the Senate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also a Democrat, about the issue and that they all agree that a sale or a block on the site would be necessary, using the authority of International Emergency Economic Powers Act, if needed. Responding to the drumbeat of comments about TikTok over the past week, the company’s general manager for US operations, Vanessa Pappas, told users on Saturday that the company was working to give them “the safest app” and that “We’re not planning on going anywhere”.

Read more …

Too much repetition makes people look away.

• Humanity Likely Faces Rapid ‘Catastrophic Collapse’ – Study (NYP)

It’s not the news you want to hear during a global health crisis. In a new theoretical study appearing in Nature Scientific Reports, a pair of statistical researchers have warned that rampant human consumption has sent us on a tailspin towards a rapid “catastrophic collapse” — which could happen in the next two to four decades. Forest density, or the current lack thereof, is considered the cataclysmic canary in the coal mine, according to the report. By comparing the rate of deforestation against humanity’s rate of consumption, study authors Mauro Bologna and Gerardo Aquino have determined there’s a 90% chance our species will collapse within decades — calling this estimate an “optimistic” measure.

“Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse,” they wrote. While much attention has been paid to the ways in which greenhouse gases have contributed to the demise of our species, Aquino focused mathematical models on the “undeniable fact” of human-driven deforestation. “Before the development of human civilizations, our planet was covered by 60 million square kilometers [37 million square miles] of forest,” according to the article. “As a result of deforestation, less than 40 million square kilometers [25 million square miles] currently remain.”

The researchers set out to “evaluate the probability of avoiding the self-destruction of our civilization” based on numerical simulations — charts and graphs that don’t look like much to us laymen, but for two theoretical physicists, they amount to disaster. They also call into play “Fermi’s paradox,” which refers to the theoretical discussion of extraterrestrial life from Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist who once asked, “Where is everybody?” One aspect of the discourse is the idea that self-destruction caused by unsustainable environmental exploitation may be an inevitability of intelligent life — and thus a potential reason why we have not yet had the opportunity to meet our galactic neighbors.

Read more …

From February, but highly relevant today.

• How The Guardian and New York Times ‘Set Up’ Julian Assange (M.)

[..] as the War Logs’ mutually-agreed publication deadline loomed, both the Times and Guardian grew increasingly anxious about being associated with the material. His film, shot just prior to the release, documents this transformation in real-time — in one highly illuminating segment, Assange informs Gavin MacFayden, then-director of the University of London’s Centre for Investigative Journalism, the New York Times has requested WikiLeaks ‘scoop’ them by publishing analysis of the Afghan War Logs first. The ‘naivety’ Davis referenced is palpably on display — “they want to report on our reporting, so they can claim they’re not involved!” Assange splutters bemusedly, in evident disbelief a newspaper would be actively resistant to publishing a seismic exclusive.

As Davis attested, the footage makes for thoroughly “chilling” viewing in the present day, given Assange is “now in jail as a result of that subterfuge”. Simultaneously, Assange himself was also growing increasingly anxious, in his case about the identities of informants and other individuals featured in the logs being revealed — no effort had been made by Guardian journalists to remove a single one, and despite repeated requests he wasn’t provided with staff or technical support to redact them. As a result, the WikiLeaks chief took up the “moral responsibility” for the files — his requests for publication to be delayed in order to give him enough time to adequately “cleanse” the documents were ignored, so he was compelled to “literally work all night” to redact around 10,000 names, Davis said.

In a perverse irony, the documentarian also exposed how despite Assange ultimately acquiescing to publishing the Logs Sunday 25th July 2010 in order to allow The Guardian and Times to ‘report’ on the story the next day, the plan was disrupted by technical issues with the WikiLeaks website. As Assange struggled to get the content online, Davis said he was inundated with “panicked, hysterical calls” from The Times and Guardian, which grew more frenzied as the day wore on — the two outlets were literally on the verge of ‘stopping the presses’, as the front-page splashes on the Afghan War Logs were entirely predicated on the notion WikiLeaks had published the documents the day prior.

It would take several days for WikiLeaks to publish the War Logs — The Guardian and Times nevertheless ran their scheduled stories on 26th July 2010, reporting on the release of the logs, despite the fact they hadn’t actually appeared on the WikiLeaks website. “Julian was their fall guy. They printed a lie. These two high priests of journalistic integrity very happily colluded, reporting on something that hadn’t happened. The entire searchable Afghan War Logs interface was the sole creation of The Guardian, they promoted it on their website and in the paper, but then they turned round and said ‘we didn’t publish this, Julian did’. They set him up from the start. They should be in jail too,” Davis concluded.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, your support is now an integral part of the process.

Thank you.

 

 

A 1968 cartoon.

 

 

Easily Tweet of the day. Hands down.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

 Older Entries