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Debt Rattle September 25 2025

Sep 252025
 
 September 25, 2025  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  70 Responses »


Edward Hopper The barber shop 1931

 

• Only 36 Countries Back Ukraine In Key UN Vote (RT)
• Trump’s Sudden Betrayal of Russia (Alexander Dugin)
• NATO Fires $470,000 Sidewinders At $2,000 Drones (Ryumshin)
• West’s Elevation Of ‘Cult Hero’ Zelensky Fueled His Hubris –The Economist (RT)
• Russia Is A Bear, Not A ‘Paper Tiger’ – Kremlin to Trump (RT)
• The EU Will Crack Under The Burden Of Ukraine (Romaenko)
• Putin Declares It’s War Or Peace In Space (Helmer)
• Zionist Trump Is No ‘Peace President’ (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Presidential Walk of Fame Features Autopen, Not Biden (Salgado)
• Can We Expect a James Comey Indictment ‘In the Coming Days’? (Margolis)
• Here’s What the FBI Found in John Bolton’s Office (Margolis)
• DOJ Investigator Ed Martin Questions FBI Agent in Alex Jones Lawsuit (CTH)
• Secret Service Are Investigating Trump Escalator, Teleprompter ‘Mishaps’ (MN)
• It’s Official: CV19 Vax Not Safe & Effective – Karen Kingston (USAW)
• India, China, Europe, & The US Are On Very Different Population Paths (ZH)

 

 

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1970498667690790954
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1970826121714237681

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1970839131061211355

 

 

 

 

Albania, Andorra,….

• Only 36 Countries Back Ukraine In Key UN Vote (RT)

A joint statement by Ukraine and the EU condemning Russia has received the backing of only 36 out of the 193 UN member states. The US notably abstained. Presented by EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga at the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday, the document describes Russia’s actions vis-a-vis Ukraine as a “blatant violation of the UN Charter.” It also calls on the global community to “maximize pressure” on Moscow, and to support Ukraine’s “territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.”

The joint statement was endorsed by the 26 EU member states, with the exception of Hungary, and also endorsed by Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK. Back in February, the UN Security Council rejected a resolution drafted by Kiev and its European backers that contained similar anti-Russian rhetoric. A competing resolution promoted by the US was eventually adopted, with Washington, Moscow, and eight other members voting in favor and five European nations abstaining. That version avoided branding Russia as an aggressor and called for a “swift end” to the Ukraine conflict.

Moscow’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, at the time described the outcome as a victory for common sense, claiming that “more and more people realize the true colors of the Zelensky regime.” Moscow has consistently characterized the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war being waged against it by the West. The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that the hostilities would end were Kiev to renounce its claims to the five regions that have joined Russia through referendums since 2014, reaffirm its neutral status, and guarantee the rights of the Russian-speaking population on its territory.

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Putin’s philosopher on X.

“The worst outcome would have been for us to be drawn in. Now there is nowhere left to be drawn..”

• Trump’s Sudden Betrayal of Russia (Alexander Dugin)

“Trump announced that he now believes Ukraine can retake all territories from Russia by purely military means, that Russia is a ‘paper tiger,’ and that he intends to sell weapons to NATO’s European members so they can flood Ukraine with them. This is a wholly different position than the one he held a minute ago. That, however, is Trump through and through. There is no other. This is nothing like MAGA or Charlie Kirk, who consistently sided with Russia and opposed aid to Kiev. But Kirk was killed. The boldest figures in MAGA are already beginning to suspect that this is not just the act of a lone liberal with a rifle living with a transgender furry.

Trump is faithful to no one and utterly faithful to himself — half MAGA, half neocon, and willing to compromise with the Deep State. That is what he is. At the same time, a pattern emerges: Trump facilitates the construction of a multipolar world even as he attempts to resist it. Consider how his wild tariffs deftly pushed India closer to China. This dynamic repeats itself across the board.

One might have thought a deal with Trump on Ukraine was possible, but in reality it is not. His positions shift by the minute; he never engages with historical or geopolitical details, and any agreement struck by a businessman is immediately overturned if someone offers better terms. That is business. This is an extremely volatile and ruthlessly brutal arena of aggressive, inhuman deception. The worst outcome would have been for us to be drawn in. Now there is nowhere left to be drawn. We have only one path: the sacred patriotic war. It was so and it remains so. Once it begins, it can end only in our victory.”

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“The more unrealistic the idea, the more it distracts from weakness.”

• NATO Fires $470,000 Sidewinders At $2,000 Drones (Ryumshin)

Why did a handful of foam plastic drones leave NATO in a panic? And why is Poland now proposing establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine? It has been a long time since the West entertained ideas as reckless as these. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski broke what had been a useful tradition of keeping quiet when he suggested NATO should impose a no-fly zone. The last time we heard this nonsense was at the very start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, when Vladimir Zelensky demanded that NATO shoot down every Russian missile and aircraft over Ukraine. Estonia cheered him on, but NATO leaders dismissed it. They knew then what should be obvious now: a no-fly zone would mean war with Russia. No one in the alliance dared risk it in 2022, and nothing has changed since.

So why bring it up again? Not because Warsaw has suddenly gone mad or discovered a taste for apocalypse. It is political theater, closer to the instincts of a porcupine fish puffing itself up than of a serious power. Poland – and much of Western Europe with it – is desperately trying to appear larger and scarier than it really is. The trigger was an incident in which a group of UAVs entered Polish airspace. Western European politicians seized on the episode, trying to extract maximum political mileage. But decisive action is the last thing on their minds. The incident revealed just how unprepared NATO is for modern warfare. Nineteen unarmed, camera-less decoy drones crossed Polish skies. Their sole purpose was to commit “suicide” against air defenses before any real strike. NATO managed to shoot down only four. The rest wandered across Poland unhindered, some travelling nearly 500km before running out of fuel and falling from the sky.

In their panic, NATO scrambled F-35 fighters armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles – each one costing $470,000. The price of a single decoy drone? No more than $3,000. To bring down a handful of foam contraptions worth $8,000-$12,000, NATO spent close to $1.9 million. The alliance failed at every level. Intelligence failed because it did not detect the drones in time and then lost track of most of them. The military failed because it had no plan for such an obvious scenario. And political leaders failed because in almost four years of conflict they have done nothing to adapt NATO to the realities of 21st-century warfare. If this is how Poland and its partners cope with nineteen decoys, how do they plan to defend Ukraine from the drone swarms of a real battle?

The no-fly zone talk is also pointless without the United States. Washington commands the only truly powerful air force in NATO, yet it shows no interest in such schemes. The alliance is deeply divided. Its European members are demanding that America stop “flirting” with Moscow and impose harsher sanctions. Donald Trump, however, is digging in his heels, telling Brussels to impose measures themselves – and add tariffs against India and China while they are at it. Even Trump, who rarely avoids hyperbole, did not join the hysteria. He limited himself to a post on social media and then suggested the drones may have strayed accidentally. That directly contradicted Warsaw’s alarmist claims. The US also quietly declined to participate in Operation Eastern Sentry, a mission designed to protect NATO’s eastern flank. Forced to rely only on European resources, the operation ended up looking feeble and unconvincing.

So what can Western Europe do in this situation? Only what it always does: raise the alarm and toss out outlandish proposals. The more unrealistic the idea, the more it distracts from weakness. The main audience for this show is Russia – NATO wants to puff up its chest and project menace. But the second audience is closer to home.Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk admitted the real goal is to curb pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian sentiment inside Western Europe. In 2022, Western leaders briefly managed to suppress their contradictions and present a united front. They want to revive that atmosphere now, even if it takes hysteria about drones and fantasies about no-fly zones. Will it work? Probably not. Opinion campaigns are under way, but there are no serious polls yet to show whether Western Europeans are buying the story. My belief is that they will not. The mood of 2022 cannot be recreated. The talk of no-fly zones will end the same way as earlier attempts to whip up panic – with nothing.

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“Zelensky was more democratic at the start, but all the applause sent him to space,” another government insider told the magazine. “He began to believe in destiny.”

• West’s Elevation Of ‘Cult Hero’ Zelensky Fueled His Hubris –The Economist (RT)

Western praise of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky encouraged overconfidence and increasingly authoritarian behavior in Kiev, The Economist argued in a piece published on Tuesday. In a “report card” assessing Ukraine’s deepening problems as its conflict with Russia drags on, the British magazine highlighted manpower shortages, a mounting budget deficit, and what it described as a growing loss of government legitimacy. Kiev’s attempted crackdown on anti-corruption agencies in July, which sparked mass protests, marked a breaking point, according to a senior Ukrainian official, who said “trust has broken down between government and society.”

“[Zelensky’s] rise as a cult hero in the West has encouraged hubris,” the outlet wrote. The Ukrainian leader was lionized by foreign officials and media, some of whom compared him to Winston Churchill. “Zelensky was more democratic at the start, but all the applause sent him to space,” another government insider told the magazine. “He began to believe in destiny.” The analysis echoed a November 2023 Time magazine story that described Zelensky’s belief in eventual victory as “immovable, verging on the messianic,” with sources saying his inner circle was unwilling to challenge the “delusion.” According to The Economist, Ukraine is now governed by “a shrinking circle of confidants,” particularly Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrey Yermak.

The latter was described as “a bruiser whose power does not seem warranted by his experience or his mandate as an unelected official,” and a person seen by some as a de facto co-president. The magazine said Zelensky’s administration “has sunk into some of Ukraine’s old vices,” citing attacks on opposition media, the use of lawfare against political rivals, and “shakedowns by the domestic-security service.” One industrialist alleged a colleague paid $2 million to avoid charges of having ties to Russia. The Economist concluded that Zelensky “will have to find something other than his role as Ukraine’s chief warrior to renew his legitimacy,” warning that he “seems to be running out of road.”

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A real bear, no less.

• Russia Is A Bear, Not A ‘Paper Tiger’ – Kremlin to Trump (RT)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has rejected US President Donald Trump’s description of Russia as “a paper tiger,” joking that the country is more commonly compared to a bear. On Tuesday, following his meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, Trump said he believes that Kiev is “in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back,” if the EU and NATO continue to support it. He compared Russia to a “paper tiger,” claiming that the country is in “BIG Economic trouble” and that “this is the time for Ukraine to act.”

In an interview with Russian business daily RBK on Wednesday, Peskov disagreed with the US leader. “Russia is not a tiger. Russia is more often associated with a bear. There are no such things as ‘paper bears,’ and Russia is a real bear,” he quipped. Peskov added that the Russian economy has adapted to the ongoing conflict and has been able to provide its military with all the necessary equipment while acknowledging that it is facing certain “problems”, which are aggravated by unprecedented Western sanctions.Trump is a “businessman,” he said, suggesting that he is trying to force the world to buy American oil and gas at a higher price.

Still, Peskov stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “highly values” Trump’s efforts to mediate the Ukraine conflict while describing their relationship as “warm.” Talks between Russia and the US are moving slowly, he noted, explaining that Washington links the issue of restoring bilateral ties to the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. Moscow remains open to seeking a peaceful resolution to the hostilities, Peskov said while Ukraine’s battlefield situation is deteriorating. “The dynamics show that for those who do not want to negotiate today, their position will be much worse tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

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“..Trump’s statement might be read not as a promise but as a test: can the EU demonstrate that it is not itself a “paper tiger”?

• The EU Will Crack Under The Burden Of Ukraine (Romaenko)

US President Donald Trump has called Russia a “paper tiger,” supposedly “in BIG economic trouble” – so big, he believes, that Kiev “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.” There’s one key caveat, though – according to Trump, that victory is possible “with the support of the European Union.” Support from the US is not included in the pep talk. This means that Trump is, for the moment, distancing himself from directly trying to end the war, at least in the short term. This also means that, unlike during the Biden years, when Washington was all but writing Zelensky a blank check, as well as supporting Kiev with intelligence and training, Trump appears to be drawing a line: responsibility should fall primarily on the EU and NATO.

The question is, do they actually have the resources, political unity, and stamina to propel Kiev to this supposed victory? EU economies are groaning under the strain of inflation and energy costs – self-inflicted wounds resulting in a large part from the cut-off of cheap Russian energy. Domestic political divisions are boiling up both between and within EU member states – again, the result of populations upset by their governments throwing cash into a bottomless pit with a “for Ukraine” sign next to it. This is where the “paper tiger” label begins to cut both ways, if not entirely backfire. Calling Russia a “paper tiger” is, above all, a psychological tactic. For decades, critics of Moscow have used similar language to argue that Russia’s military power is overstated, its economy brittle, and its system fragile.

Trump is not the first to say this, and he will not be the last. But such claims have been proven wrong as often as they have been vindicated – and since the beginning of Russia’s military operation and the ensuing sanctions, they have been proven nothing but wrong. The Russian economy, despite sanctions, has not collapsed. Predictions of its imminent demise have been made repeatedly since 2022, only to be walked back as Moscow adapted, re-routed trade, and leveraged its vast natural resources. That does not mean Russia is just shrugging off the West’s pressure: severe challenges and serious problems do arise and they are being openly discussed and overcome. Yet, the collapse thesis has become increasingly difficult to sustain after years of “imminent collapse” forecasts that never materialized.

This illustrates that narratives of inevitable collapse often serve political purposes more than analytical clarity. Trump’s framing fits neatly into this tradition: the “paper tiger” line does not come from sound economic analysis. It’s simply an attempt to undermine Russia’s psychological standing. For Ukraine, Trump’s affirmation that it can defeat Russia may have been meant as a morale boost. Except it probably doesn’t sound all that encouraging when Kiev realizes it will have to rely on its own nonexistent economy and the backing of European regimes that are struggling both politically and economically – struggles that come from blind support for Kiev to begin with. As EU leaders continue to try to drum up support with tired calls for “unity for Ukraine,” they keep bleeding voters. Defense spending is rising, but weapons and resources are being funneled to Kiev.

In several countries, support for the centrist establishment is in the gutter, and parties that promise to refocus on domestic problems are rapidly gaining popularity. If the burden of carrying Kiev falls entirely to EU nations, this will not only accelerate Ukraine’s own defeat, but also the demise of many of the EU’s own struggling governments. In this sense, Trump’s statement might be read not as a promise but as a test: can the EU demonstrate that it is not itself a “paper tiger”? Trump would love to go down in history as a great peace-maker, but what he wants even more – what he promised the voters who followed his “America First” banner – is to end Washington’s entanglement in losing battles.

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Putin wants new treaties. Trump should, too.

• Putin Declares It’s War Or Peace In Space (Helmer)

Yesterday afternoon at the Kremlin meeting of the Security Council, President Vladimir Putin proposed to extend the current strategic nuclear weapons limitations of the New START Treaty expiring in February 2026, for one more year into 2027. This is the time Putin is giving President Donald Trump to choose between his Golden Dome escalation in space or new terms of nuclear deescalation by treaty with Russia. “Particular attention,” Putin declared, “must be directed towards US plans to expand strategic components of its missile defence system, including preparations for the deployment of interceptors in outer space. We believe that the practical implementation of such destabilising measures could nullify our efforts to maintain the status quo in the field of strategic offensive arms. We will respond appropriately in this case.”

“In order to prevent the emergence of a new strategic arms race and to preserve an acceptable degree of predictability and restraint, we consider it reasonable to maintain at this turbulent time the status quo established under New START. Accordingly, Russia is prepared to continue observing the treaty’s central quantitative restrictions for one year after February 5, 2026.” This isn’t Putin’s first offer of a timeout for Trump. On October 16, 2020, Putin had announced “to extend the [START] Treaty now in effect unconditionally for at least a year in order to have a chance to hold substantive talks on all the parameters of problems that are regulated by treaties of this kind, lest we leave our countries and all nations of the world with a vested interest in maintaining strategic stability without such a fundamental document as the Strategic Offensive Arms Limitation Treaty.”

Trump rejected that offer before he lost the election the following month. President Joseph Biden then accepted it and on February 3, 2021, the State Department and Foreign Ministry exchanged papers extending the New START terms for five years until 2026. Putin’s statement of yesterday is his explicit reply to Trump’s announcement of Golden Dome four months ago, on May 20. “There’s never been anything like this,” Trump said. “This is something that’s going to be very protective. I think you can rest assured there’ll be nothing like this. Nobody else is capable of building it either.”

According to Trump, the new Golden Dome system – to be part-paid by Canada, he added – “will integrate with our existing defence capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term. So we’ll have it done in about three years [2028]. Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space, and we will have the best system ever built. As you know, we helped Israel with theirs and it was very successful and now we have technology that’s even far advanced from that, but including hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles and advanced cruise missiles, all of them will be knocked out of the air.”

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland and the success rate is very close to 100 percent, which is incredible when you think of it, you’re shooting bullets out of the air. I’m also pleased to report that the One Big, Beautiful Bill will include $25 billion for the Golden Dome to help construction get underway”. Trump was asked by a reporter: “Have you addressed Russia’s ventures in space with a space based nuclear weapon and told Putin to stop in your conversations with him?” Trump replied: “We haven’t discussed it. But at the right time we will.” Putin has just called time. Trump has seventeen months.

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“..an obvious hoax. But it served for the neoconservatives to elicit from Trump that if “Russia keeps escalating” the US will defend Poland and the Baltic States from Russia.”

• Zionist Trump Is No ‘Peace President’ (Paul Craig Roberts)

Robert Kagan, the Jewish Zionist Neoconservative Husband of another Jewish Zionist Neoconservative, Victoria Nuland, has written an article in the Jewish Publication, formerly the WASP magazine, The Atlantic, that blames Washington for assisting Ukraine in Washington’s war against Russia while avoiding direct confrontation with Russia when the real target was Russia. Kagan says that insufficient Russian forces made it possible for America to dispense with the alleged Russian threat.

Do you remember Kagan’s “Project for a New American Century?” It wasn’t a project for America. It was a project for Israel. All American neoconservatives serve Israel, not America. It is a reasonable conclusion that the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2021 was an inside job arranged by the highly placed neoconservatives in the US government led by vice president Dick Cheney. The purpose of the attack was to produce the “New Pearl Harbor” that the Zionist neoconservatives said was necessary to deceive the American people into a quarter century of war destroying the Arab countries in the way of Greater Israel.

The Americans fell for the orchestrated deceit of “the war on terror,” and sacrificed their money and their soldiers for the sake of Israel. Five of the “seven countries in five years” whose destruction the neconservatives called for have been destroyed. Norman Podhoretz proposed the project in the Jewish magazine, Commentary. Whether or not Podhoretz used the specific quote, “seven countries in five years,” he called for the overthrow of seven countries ending with Saudi Arabia. I read the article and most likely wrote about it. General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told us about it in a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California in 2007. Neoconservatives talked about it openly. 9/11 created America’s “war on terror,” which was used to destroy Muslin countries opposed to Greater Israel.

In 2014 the neoconservatives used their high positions in the US government to overthrow the Ukraine government in the “Maidan Revolution,” appointed an anti-Russian president, and began the Ukrainian neo-nazi campaign against the Russian residents in Donbas, formerly part of Russia. This forced Russia’s intervention. Russia’s forced intervention was called “the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” The escalations of the conflict in Ukraine have been caused by the US which has supplied ever longer range weapons to Ukraine and the targeting information that permits their use. Recently the whore media reported a nonexistent “drone attack” by Russia on Poland and the Baltics, an obvious hoax. But it served for the neoconservatives to elicit from Trump that if “Russia keeps escalating” the US will defend Poland and the Baltic States from Russia.

In other words, the neoconservatives’ agenda is to expand the war from Ukraine to Poland and the Baltic States. By expanding the conflict, the neoconservatives hope to gradually wear down Russia. Putin handed this opportunity to the Russophobic neoconservatives with his never-ending, ever-widening war in Donbas. Putin’s failure to quickly win the conflict is proving to be a strategic blunder. Putin was too afraid of alarming the West to tend to Russia’s interest. In the meantime, the US military/security complex and the neoconservatives have wrested foreign and military policy out of Trump’s hands and catapulted the nuclear arms race into space with the Golden Dome escalation of deploying nuclear weapons in space, a project that will produce never-ending profits and cost overruns.

Putin has offered to extend the expiring START treaty one year, if Trump will agree, in order to avoid an even less predictable and more destabilizing nuclear situation. Trump, totally failing to comprehend the increased danger that accompanies Golden Dome, describes it as completing President Reagan’s work to “end the missile threat to the American homeland.” No, President Trump. Reagan worked to end, not escalate, the cold war that the Zionist neoconservatives have restarted and to normalize relations with Russia. Reagan’s “Star Wars” was a threat intended to bring the Soviet Union to the negotiating table, like your tariff threats are used to bring foreign investment to the US.

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“No politician trolls quite like Donald Trump does.”

• Presidential Walk of Fame Features Autopen, Not Biden (Salgado)

Donald Trump‘s new White House Presidential Walk of Fame features a picture of the infamous autopen instead of the face of Joe Biden for the 46th president. Margo Martin, special assistant to the president and communications advisor, posted a video of the new Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House. “Wait for it…” she joked with a pen emoji. The White House followed up with an image of Trump looking at the autopen between the photos of himself on the walk.Trump had previously indicated that he would use a picture of the autopen in his new Walk of Fame and joked about not using a portrait with a smile. “This is going to be very controversial,” Trump predicted with satisfaction.

Judging from the ranting and raving already on X from leftists, he was absolutely right in that prediction. His administration is currently investigating the autopen scandal to assess who was actually running the country, since clearly Joe Biden was not. There are quite a few evil, anti-American, and/or insidious men on the Presidential Walk of Fame, including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Lyndon Johnson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Jackson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But the face of the man who is arguably our worst president ever does not appear on the walk, with a classic Trump dig at his dementia-incapacitated predecessor’s lack of control in his own administration.

Trump has commented on the autopen scandal and ridiculed Biden and his advisers for it numerous times. Just a couple of weeks ago, Trump posted on Truth Social, “THE BIDEN AUTOPEN SCANDAL IS BIG, NOT AS BIG AS THE RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX, OR THE RIGGED 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, BUT, NEVERTHELESS, ONE OF THE BIGGEST, EVER!!!” The autopen scandal revolves around revelations that numerous pardons and other executive actions, including for felon Hunter Biden and COVID tyrant Dr. Anthony Fauci, were signed not by Joe Biden himself, in a continually deteriorating state of mind as he was, but by autopen. Recipients of the pardons included violent criminals, a child porn offender with CCP ties, Liz Cheney, and various members of the Biden family.

While presidents have been able to access an autopen for decades, the fact that it may be unconstitutional has meant it is usually not used for important documents. Obama raised controversy by authorizing the use of the autopen when he was not in Washington, D.C., but the Biden administration went further, in many cases seemingly using it for documents about which Joe Biden was not even aware. Therefore, it is quite likely that pardons signed by autopen are, in fact, invalid. No politician trolls quite like Donald Trump does. Every person who visits the Presidential Walk of Fame will be reminded that Dementia Joe Biden and his advisors presided over one of the most shameful scandals in modern American history.

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They’ve run out of time. That may doom the case.

• Can We Expect a James Comey Indictment ‘In the Coming Days’? (Margolis)

Brace yourselves, folks, because Washington is rumbling again. Former FBI director James Comey, once the darling of the anti-Trump press, now finds himself staring down the barrel of an indictment, according to the progressive stronghold MSNBC and insiders familiar with the probe. That’s right: for all the years Democrats lionized Comey as the fierce guardian of the “Russia collusion” narrative, the tables may be turning in spectacular fashion. MSNBC broke the news on Wednesday afternoon that Comey is on the verge of facing criminal charges. Anchor Katy Tur told viewers, “Three sources familiar tell MSNBC former FBI director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the coming days.”

Tur added, “The full extent of the charges being prepared against Comey is unclear,” before bringing in MSNBC justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian and senior investigative correspondent Carol Leonnig for analysis. Leonnig explained, “We have some sources who say that for several weeks now, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia, and actually in offices that are potentially much further south than Alexandria, have been eyeing ways to indict Comey, and they are getting very much closer.” She continued, “They are arguing that Comey — there is evidence to suggest Comey lied to Congress in his testimony on The Hill in September of 2020.”

Leonnig pointed out that the clock is running out for prosecutors. “For viewers out in the audience who may not be legally as nerdy as me and Ken, I’ll just say that there’s a statute of limitations to charge people with the crime of lying to Congress, or perjury, and that’s five years. The five-year statute runs this month.” According to CNN, prosecutors haven’t made a decision yet.

Federal prosecutors are nearing a decision whether to bring possible perjury charges against former FBI Director James Comey, with a legal deadline expiring on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the investigation. The probe, run by federal prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office for Virginia’s eastern district, is examining whether Comey made false statements during his September, 30, 2020, testimony to Congress on his handling of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, people familiar with the matter said. Prosecutors, under criminal law, generally would only have five years to the day to bring a charge.

If a federal grand jury were to approve the case by next week, it would mark one of the highest-profile indictments of a political figure during President Donald Trump’s second term in office – and against one of the longtime figures whom Trump and his political allies detest the most from what they call the “deep state” of the federal government. If the Justice Department truly brings charges, it will represent a seismic test of accountability inside the federal bureaucracy. For years, the media have shielded Comey as a noble martyr of the “resistance,” but if prosecutors finally hold him to the same laws that every American faces, there’s no going back. The public must demand transparency because, without it, this indictment risks becoming just another D.C. power play buried under the weight of spin.

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Bolton was a secrets supermarket for ages.

• Here’s What the FBI Found in John Bolton’s Office (Margolis)

The FBI raided John Bolton’s office and home last month and exposed yet another former government official who mishandled classified documents. Democrats and their media allies spent years screaming about Donald Trump’s document handling, stayed completely silent when Joe Biden had classified files in his garage, and now, predictably, aren’t losing any sleep over authorities catching one of their favorite anti-Trump Republicans with classified materials.

On August 22, federal agents raided Bolton’s Washington office and his Bethesda residence, walking away with a treasure trove of classified documents marked “secret,” “confidential,” and other sensitive designations. According to court filings, the materials reportedly span Bolton’s lengthy government career, including his time during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations from 1998 to 2006, covering everything from weapons of mass destruction intelligence to strategic communications and United Nations mission documents.

What makes this particularly rich is the timing and the player involved. Bolton, who made a career out of positioning himself as the principled conservative willing to stand up to Trump, now finds himself facing potential Espionage Act violations. The same man who positioned himself as a paragon of national security virtue apparently kept classified materials in his office decades after leaving government service. The FBI’s investigation goes beyond simple document retention. Court filings reveal that agents are hunting for evidence of conspiracy to gather, transmit, or lose national defense information without proper authorization. That’s serious business, the kind that can land someone in federal prison for years. The seriousness of the situation is huge considering that, according to federal investigators, a “foreign entity” successfully hacked Bolton’s AOL email account.

Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, who previously represented Hunter Biden, is doing what defense lawyers do: claiming that everything was above board and that many documents had been cleared through pre-publication review processes. However, that defense rings hollow when considering the scope of what investigators found. These weren’t just a few memos that slipped through the cracks; this was an extensive collection of sensitive materials spanning multiple administrations and covering some of our nation’s most closely guarded secrets. This case also highlights the broader problem of Washington’s revolving door culture, where former officials routinely walk away with materials they claim are necessary for their post-government careers. Joe Biden, for example, had classified documents in his garage dating back to his days as a U.S. senator.

The fact that some of these documents in Bolton’s possession date back to the Clinton and Bush eras demonstrates just how long this problem has been festering. While Bolton built his reputation as a hawk who understood the importance of protecting American secrets, his alleged actions suggest a different reality, one where personal convenience trumped national security protocols. As this investigation continues, Americans deserve answers about how a former national security advisor could allegedly retain classified materials for decades while using compromised email systems that foreign adversaries could access. The Justice Department must pursue this case with the same intensity it has shown in other high-profile document cases, regardless of Bolton’s political positioning or media relationships.

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“..it wasn’t particularly smart for Alex Jones to post the letter on his Twitter account. Without much doubt the Ed Martin retraction was due to this knuckleheaded move.”

• DOJ Investigator Ed Martin Questions FBI Agent in Alex Jones Lawsuit (CTH)

UPDATE: According to CNN, “in a new letter addressed to attorney Christopher Mattei on Wednesday, Martin withdrew his initial letter entirely. In a brief note, according to a person familiar with the letter, Martin wrote that there is no investigation of Aldenberg and “because of this, I hereby withdraw my request for information from you or your former client.”

As noted in the original outline below, it wasn’t particularly smart for Alex Jones to post the letter on his Twitter account. Without much doubt the Ed Martin retraction was due to this knuckleheaded move.

— Original Outline Below —
William “Bill” Aldenberg was the lead investigator for John Durham in 2020. Bill Aldenberg was also a plaintiff in the case against Alex Jones in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 2012, lawsuit and civil trial 2022. According to a U.S. News and World Report article, “Aldenberg was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the school and found the dead children. That then led to years of abuse from people who believed the shooting was a hoax, he has said. His share of the judgment totaled around $120 million.” Bill Aldenberg was the first witness in the 2022 case against InfoWars. Alex Jones and InfoWars lost the lawsuit and were punished by a $1.4 billion damage award to the plaintiffs. InfoWars filed bankruptcy and the arguments over liquidation of assets is underway in Texas.

Here’s where things get weird. We know the FBI was conducting an operation called “Arctic Frost,” essentially the targeting of Donald Trump and key figures who aligned with Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election. It is widely suspected, the massive amount of evidence captured in the Arctic Frost operation, was eventually fed to the January 6th Committee for use in their expanded investigation. That evidence then underpinned the case against President Trump that was being assembled by Jack Smith. Essentially, operation Arctic Frost was the evidence gathering operation, then the J6 Committee and special counsel Jack Smith used the FBI evidence to frame their cases. [Readers will note, this process is similar to the FBI “Crossfire Hurricane” operation, which fed evidence to special counsel Robert Mueller, to frame their cases.]

Back to FBI Investigative Agent William Aldenberg, who was lead for John Durham. DOJ attorney Ed Martin is looking at the connective tissue around all of the FBI targeting operations. He now asks the lawyers for William Aldenberg about details of their client’s involvement in the case against Alex Jones.


Alex Jones posted a copy of the letter on his Twitter [X] feed, along with a picture of him and Ed Martin. A rather knuckleheaded move by Jones considering how Ed Martin says in the letter he would prefer not to litigate the issue in the media. Then again, wisdom and sound judgement have never been Jones’ strong points. Really, it’s a convoluted mess making the serious issues around Arctic Frost get lost in the weeds. Then again, perhaps that is a feature not a flaw. Many people, CTH included, view Alex Jones through the prism of compromise ever since the $1.4 billion sword of Damocles was established over his head.

(USN&WR) – “[…] Ed Martin Jr., who leads the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group,” asked in the letter whether retired agent William Aldenberg received any financial benefits from helping to organize the lawsuit, in which he was a plaintiff along with victims’ family members. Aldenberg, like the parents and other relatives of the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, has been the subject of false conspiracy theories spread by Jones on his “Infowars” broadcasts. Aldenberg was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the school and found the dead children. That then led to years of abuse from people who believed the shooting was a hoax, he has said. His share of the judgment totaled around $120 million.

In a Sept. 15 letter to Christopher Mattei, a lawyer who represents Sandy Hook families, Martin suggested he was scrutinizing Aldenberg’s role in the lawsuit. Mattei responded to the letter in a text message to The Associated Press. “Thanks to the courage of the Sandy Hook families, Infowars will soon be finished,” he said, referring to the families’ efforts in court to liquidate Jones’ assets to help pay the judgment. “In his last gasps, Jones is once again harassing them, only now with the corrupt complicity of at least one DOJ official. It’s as disgusting as it is pathetic, and we will not stand for it.”

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Trump and Melania were stuck in a glass elevator. Ready for shooting practice.

• Secret Service Are Investigating Trump Escalator, Teleprompter ‘Mishaps’ (MN)

President Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has stated that the Secret Service are looking into incidents prior to and during President Trump’s speech to the UN where an escalator was seemingly purposefully stopped the moment he stepped onto it, and a teleprompter malfunctioned just as he was about to speak. Appearing on Jesse Watters’ show, Leavitt noted “There was some concerning reporting over the weekend from the London Times, as you pointed out, that U.N. globalist staffers were basically plotting to set up the president of the United States.” She continued, “And first it was the escalator, then it was the teleprompter, and then Katie Pavlich from Townhall, who we offered a seat in the press pool to cover the president’s historic speech today, noticed that the audio inside of the room was much lower and different for the president of the United States than the previous speaker.”

“So when you put all of this together, it doesn’t look like a coincidence to me,” the Press Secretary further asserted, adding “I know that we have people, including the United States Secret Service, who are looking into this to try to get to the bottom of it.” Leavitt further remarked that “if we find that these were U.N. staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people. And I will personally see to it.” In addition to lambasting the UN for its “empty words” on global conflicts, Trump quipped “These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”

https://twitter.com/Viralvid_89/status/1970582389417222261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1970582389417222261%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmodernity.news%2F2025%2F09%2F24%2Fsecret-service-are-investigating-trump-escalator-teleprompter-mishaps%2F

While the teleprompter glitch was an embarrassing tech hiccup, it’s the escalator stoppage that demands scrutiny as a glaring security lapse. UN officials quickly attributed it to a safety mechanism triggered accidentally by Trump’s videographer backing up the stairs, and the White House has demanded an investigation into potential sabotage. But even if unintentional, the incident exposes deep vulnerabilities in protecting a leader with a massive target on his back. Trump has survived two assassination attempts in 2024 alone, and the recent murder of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, a brazen campus shooting by a lone gunman with leftist derangements, has only amplified the threats. Kirk’s killing, amid a surge in politically motivated violence on the left, underscores a rising tide of leftist aggression: from arson attacks on officials’ homes to targeted hits on high-profile voices challenging progressive orthodoxy.

Imagine the escalator halting not by glitch, but by design—or worse, exploiting a momentary freeze in Secret Service protocols. Trump, frozen in place on a confined, elevated platform, surrounded by international delegates and staff in a building teeming with potential bad actors. No quick exit, no buffer zone; just seconds of vulnerability where a concealed assailant could strike. This a near-miss that could have echoed the chaos of Butler, Pennsylvania, or the golf course attempt last year. The Secret Service, still reeling from those failures, must up their game: pre-clear every mechanism in high-threat venues, deploy redundant transport like private elevators, and drill for “stuck” scenarios that turn routine movements into kill zones. Anything less invites disaster, especially as Trump’s unfiltered rhetoric continues to provoke extremists on the left.

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She warned from the very start.

• It’s Official: CV19 Vax Not Safe & Effective – Karen Kingston (USAW)

Karen Kingston is a biotech analyst and former Pfizer employee that told everyone not to get the CV19 vax because of all the health problems it would cause. She did this repeatedly after the CV19 vaccine rollout to wake up the public up to the dangers of the injections. She listed heart disease, auto immune problems, blood clotting and turbo cancers popping up everywhere, including the brain. These are just a few of the many problems caused by the CV19 vax that led to disability and death for millions of people around the world. The things Kingston revealed about why nobody should get the CV19 vax have now been officially acknowledged by the top doctors and researchers in the world at the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) this past week.

Kingston, who sat in on the six-hour meeting, says, “What happened during this meeting, the policies that were voted on, the evidence reviewed . . . is now going to become policy. This was not a Senate dog and pony show. This was a regulatory . . . legally binding meeting.” A few of the highlights that came out of this meeting, according to Kingston, “They said we have to be honest about Myocarditis caused by the CV19 vax. They said the CV19 vaccine causes short-term and long-term diseases and injuries, and those need to be addressed. Professor Levi said we must drop the term ‘safe and effective.’ It is propaganda, and it should never be used when describing the Covid 19 vaccine. The term ‘safe and effective’ has got to go away.”

Also, so-called ‘turbo cancers’ came up at the ACIP meeting and the fact they are caused by the CV19 vaccine. For years, pregnant women were told the CDC recommended they get the CV19 shots. That too is no longer the CDC recommendation. Another big change is true informed consent about the huge risks with the CV19 vaccines. The new rule would basically force doctors and pharmacists to tell the public about the possibility of death and disability with the risk of getting cancer, autoimmune disease, blood clotting and infertility, to name a few. Kingston says, “Informed consent was clearly defined throughout the presentations. . .. Informed consent is not just signing off on a piece of paper. It is a shared clinical decision. . .. In a shared clinical decision, you are now sharing responsibility with that patient. The old, informed consent was ‘I signed my form, I got my $20 CVS coupon, and I got my shot.’ That is not informed consent.”

So, they are going to actually have to tell you all the bad things that can happen if you get the CV19 vax. Kingston told everyone NOT to get the CV19 vax right after the rollout in 2021. All the reasons she gave back then have now come out in this recent ACIP regulatory meeting. If there is going to be true informed consent, Kingston says, “Nobody of sound mind would get these shots. . . .If your doctor knows all the evidence and all the serious adverse events, and your doctor still tells you to get the shots, is that malpractice at this point?” Another big lie exposed is that the CV19 vaccine made Covid19 milder. This is yet another total lie exposed at the ACIP meeting. Kingston says, “Professor Levi straight up said, the actual . . . clinical trials did not show decrease in hospitalization or death . . . they, in fact, showed harm.”

Also, at the ACIP meeting, the recent Rasmussen poll came up that showed 56% of Americans now believe the CV19 vax caused deaths. This is another signpost in the public’s perception on these dangerous and debilitating CV19 injections. Kingston contends this ACIP meeting was a turning point and says, “I think this is the beginning of the end of the CV19 shots.” There was even talk of treatment for the CV19 vax injured, but no definite treatments were put forth—yet. Maybe the CDC can talk to Dr. Betsy Eads or Dr. Pierre Kory about how to treat the millions of victims of the CV19 bioweapon vax. They and other doctors have been successfully doing it since the CV19 injections started.

Read more …

Interesting, but what use is it to look at global population prospects without looking at Africa? They’re the odd one out.

• India, China, Europe, & The US Are On Very Different Population Paths (ZH)

This chart, via Voronoiapp.com, tracks the UN’s latest demographic projections for four large populations: India, China, Europe, and the United States. Together, they account for about half of today’s world population. The curves are shaped by what the UN expects to happen to future fertility, life expectancy, and migration worldwide. India and China are the world’s most populous countries today, and the UN projects that both will remain at the top through the end of the century. Yet their trajectories diverge sharply in these projections. China’s population has already begun to fall and is projected to more than halve to around 630 million by 2100. India, by contrast, is expected to keep growing for nearly four more decades, reaching about 1.7 billion people in 2060 and gradually declining to around 1.5 billion.

In contrast, the United States and Europe are projected to change more gradually. The US is expected to grow slowly and steadily, reaching about 420 million people by the end of the century. Europe’s population, meanwhile, is projected to decline. Based on these figures, its population peaked around 750 million in 2020, and is expected to fall to about 590 million by 2100, not far from China’s projected level. The UN’s model is the most widely used baseline for international population comparisons, but all population projections are sensitive to the underlying assumptions. Other research groups use different demographic assumptions about fertility, life expectancy, and migration to reach different long-term population figures.

Read more …

 

 

 

 


https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/1970584779054817584

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 25 2024

Feb 252024
 
 February 25, 2024  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Paul Cézanne Sugar Bowl, Pears and Blue Cup c.1866

 

• House Democrats Could Vote Against Certifying Trump If He’s Elected (Fox)
• Trump Seeks Dismissal of Mar-a-Lago Case, Says Jack Smith Lacks Authority (ET)
• McCaskill: Media Must Stop Fact Checking Joe Biden (Turley)
• China Lashes Out At ‘Agent Of Trouble’ NATO (RT)
• 2 Years After the Start of the SMO, West is Totally Paralyzed (Pepe Escobar)
• Collapse of Operation Citadel 2.0 (Sivkov)
• Mood In Zelensky’s Office ‘Grim’ As US Aid Delayed – Politico (RT)
• Ukraine Ready For War With China If US Asks – MP (RT)
• Growing Rift Over Further Arming Ukraine ‘Jeopardizes EU Unity’ (Sp.)
• US Spent ‘Decades’ Worth of Weapons Supplies on War in Ukraine – Senator (Sp.)
• US Sees No Chance Of Ukraine Peace Before Election – WSJ (RT)
• Netanyahu’s Post-War Plans for Gaza Call for Indefinite Occupation (Antiwar)
• UK’s Failed Trident Missile Test Emblematic of Its ‘Decline and Demise’ (Sp.)
• Former Panama Border Chief: UN Is Behind the Chaos at US–Mexico Border (ET)
• New York Prosecutes Couple For Fraud (BBee)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Obama

 

 

Miller

 

 

 

 

Tucker Steve Kirsch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1761369027685793810
https://twitter.com/i/status/1761435501943312491

 

 

 

 

Bukele

 

 

 

 

“.. liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.”

• House Democrats Could Vote Against Certifying Trump If He’s Elected (Fox)

A new piece published in The Atlantic this week floated the idea that there might be room for House Democrats to vote against certifying former President Trump for office if he wins re-election. The article, written by staff writer Russell Berman, argued that if the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on whether Trump is eligible to run for office under the 14th Amendment, then House Democrats could take it upon themselves to vote against certifying him, as it’s up to them to say he’s ineligible. Berman wrote that “legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him.”

The theory stems from the Colorado Supreme Court case to kick Trump off the state’s primary ballot, which the U.S. Supreme Court took up and heard oral arguments for earlier this month. As Berman’s piece suggested, if the high court does not come down one way or another on whether Trump is eligible for office – as Colorado’s court argued he violated the 14th Amendment’s “Insurrection” clause – then Democrats who believe he is ineligible will have a decision to make. Berman continued: “In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility. But during oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.”

He also noted that “Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November,” so they would have the power to do something. Additionally, he reminded readers that “in early 2021, every House Democrat (along with 10 Republicans) voted to impeach Trump for ‘incitement of insurrection,’ and a significant majority of those lawmakers will still be in Congress next year.” Given those factors, Democrats who believe that Trump committed insurrection and have the majority in Congress might feel compelled to decide whether Trump enters office, if the Court declines to declare he’s eligible. Berman asked Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., currently a leading contender for the U.S. Senate in California, what would happen if the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on Trump’s eligibility. “I don’t want to get into the chaos hypothetical,” Schiff replied, though he did note that if the court said Trump was eligible, he would certify him.

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“President Biden’s DOJ is paying for this politically-motivated prosecution of Biden’s chief political rival ‘off the books,’ without accountability or authorization..”

• Trump Seeks Dismissal of Mar-a-Lago Case, Says Jack Smith Lacks Authority (ET)

Former President Donald Trump filed several motions to dismiss a classified documents case being pursued against him in Florida on Thursday, arguing that, amongst other things, special counsel Jack Smith “lacks the authority” to prosecute the case. In one of four motions, attorneys for the former president contend that neither the U.S. Constitution nor Congress had officially established the special counsel’s office, rendering Mr. Smith’s appointment invalid. Furthermore, they argue that the special counsel’s office is being funded “off the books” by the Biden administration. The motion, which cites the Appointments Clause, argues that Attorney General Merrick Garland did not have the authority to appoint a “like-minded political ally” as special counsel “without Senate confirmation.” “As such, Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action,” the motion reads.

President Trump’s lawyers argue that the only remedy is to dismiss the superseding indictment. The Appointments Clause stipulates that all federal offices, except for the president’s, must be established by Congress and appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. This is with the exception of federal offices created through the Necessary and Proper Clause, which empowers Congress to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested in the government. “There is, however, no statute establishing the Office of Special Counsel,” the motion reads. “As a result, because neither the Constitution nor Congress have created the office of the ‘Special Counsel,’ Smith’s appointment is invalid and any prosecutorial power he seeks to wield is ultra vires,” meaning beyond his authority. In addition to arguing that Mr. Smith’s appointment was unlawful, the four motions argued that the case should be dismissed on the basis of presidential immunity, the Presidential Records Act, and unconstitutional vagueness.

Mr. Garland appointed Mr. Smith as special counsel on Nov. 18, 2022, to “prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation” into President Trump’s handling of classified documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. President Trump’s attorneys argue in their Thursday filing that Mr. Smith, at best, is classified as an employee rather than an “officer” under the statutes cited by Mr. Garland in making his appointment, which they say lacks the legal foundation required by the Appointments Clause. Attorneys for the former president argue that Mr. Smith’s office is drawing from an endless “off the books” pot of money from the Department of Justice (DOJ) instead of the ordinary budget process, in violation of the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution. “President Biden’s DOJ is paying for this politically-motivated prosecution of Biden’s chief political rival ‘off the books,’ without accountability or authorization,” the motion reads.

President Trump’s attorneys, Christopher Kise and Todd Blanche, note in their motion that Mr. Smith’s office spent nearly $13 million in Fiscal Year 2023. According to the filing, this money did not come from the DOJ’s budget but from the “permanent indefinite appropriation” only available to independent counsels appointed under the Independent Counsel Act or other law—and not to special counsels. “Smith is not an independent counsel, but the nearly $13 million that Smith spent in Fiscal Year 2023—with no accountability—is more than 10% of the annual budgets of DOJ’s Tax and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions,” the motion reads.

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“..The only blemish on the great country of America worldwide is, in fact, Donald Trump.”

• McCaskill: Media Must Stop Fact Checking Joe Biden (Turley)

MSNBC contributor and former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has been one of the most vocal voices attacking critics of Joe Biden and opposing any investigations into his family or his policies. She attacked journalists and others who spoke in favor of free speech, calling them “Putin apologists” and Putin lovers. Now she is lashing out at the media for fact checking Joe Biden’s false claims . . . any false claims. McCaskill called The New York Times “ridiculous” for a story correcting Biden’s false claims about the economy. She warned the media that they are only helping Trump by pointing out Biden’s false or misleading claims: “What everyone says when you travel, ‘Well, you wouldn’t elect him again, would you? Hasn’t the country learned? You wouldn’t ever give this guy power again, would you? Tell us that he’s not going to be re-elected. Please, tell us you’ve learned your lesson.’ So The only blemish on the great country of America worldwide is, in fact, Donald Trump.”

She then added, “Can I make a suggestion? I move that every newspaper in America quits doing any fact checks on Joe Biden until they fact check Donald Trump every morning on the front page. It is ridiculous that The New York Times fact check Joe Biden on something. I mean, he vomits lies, Trump vomits lies. And he, every day over and over and over again. And it’s just ridiculous that The New York Times is doing a fact check on Biden while they let Trump- they’re numb to the torrent of lies coming out of Trump’s mouth.” It is that easy. Just stop fact checking. Of course, the media has always fact checked Trump with a certain glee. Such fact checks are a good thing and Trump has been legitimately criticized for many claims.

However, McCaskill and others believe that the media must fall in line with the effort to reelect Biden. The Washington Post previously gave Biden a rare “bottomless Pinocchio” for his false claims. According to McCaskill, that must stop at least until after the election. The public simply does not need to know such facts when democracy is at stake. It appears that ignorance is bliss when it comes to politics. Of course, it was Benjamin Franklin who said “being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”

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“..stop saber-rattling, and do things that are genuinely conducive to world peace.”

• China Lashes Out At ‘Agent Of Trouble’ NATO (RT)

NATO should cease its “saber-rattling” and start promoting global peace, Chinese envoy Zhang Jun has said at a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to the second anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine. The struggle between Moscow and Kiev, which started on February 24, 2022, is a “tragedy that could have been avoided,” Zhang stressed in his address on Friday. ”The situation Europe is facing today is closely related to the repeated eastward expansion of NATO since the end of the Cold War,” he said. Russia singled out preventing Ukraine from joining NATO as one of the main goals of its military operation in the neighboring country. Moscow warned on numerous occasions that it viewed Kiev’s possible membership in the US-led military alliance as a major threat to its security.

The Chinese envoy underlined the need to “respect the legitimate security concerns of all countries,” who are members of the UN. “Regional security cannot be guaranteed by strengthening or even expanding a military bloc,” he added. ”We encourage NATO to do some soul-searching, come out of the cage of Cold War mentality, and refrain from acting as an agent of trouble instigating bloc confrontation,” Zhang said. He also called on NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg “to look at the world through an objective lens, stop saber-rattling, and do things that are genuinely conducive to world peace.” According to the envoy, the parties to the Ukraine conflict should work towards creating “favorable conditions for the resumption of negotiations… not man-made obstacles to make peace harder to achieve, much less to supply weapons, stoke the fire and pour oil on it, and to profit from the prolonged crisis.”

In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that “the promise was that NATO would not expand eastward” after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. But the West deceived Moscow, with the US-led bloc adding new members from among Eastern European and former Soviet states on several occasions since then, he said. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were the first former Soviet-bloc nations to join NATO. An even bigger wave of expansion occurred in 2004 when Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became members. At its Bucharest summit in 2008, the alliance said that Georgia and Ukraine would become members in the future, spurring vigorous protests from Russia.

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“..the destruction of the European economy has been a massive tactic, historic victory for the Hegemon..”

• 2 Years After the Start of the SMO, West is Totally Paralyzed (Pepe Escobar)

Exactly two years ago this Saturday, on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the launching – and described the objectives – of a Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. That was the inevitable follow-up to what happened three days before, on February 21 – exactly 8 years after Maidan 2014 in Kiev – when Putin officially recognized the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. During this – pregnant with meaning – short space of only three days, everyone expected that the Russian Armed Forces would intervene, militarily, to end the massive bombing and shelling that had been going on for three weeks across the frontline – which even forced the Kremlin to evacuate populations at risk to Russia. Russian intel had conclusive proof that the NATO-backed Kiev forces were ready to execute an ethnic cleansing of Russophone Donbass.

February 24, 2022 was the day that changed 21st century geopolitics forever, in several complex ways. Above all, it marked the beginning of a vicious, all-out confrontation, “military-technical” as the Russians call it, between the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, its easily pliable NATOstan vassals, and Russia – with Ukraine as the battleground. There is hardly any question Putin had calculated, before and during these three fateful days, that his decisions would unleash the unbounded fury of the collective West – complete with a tsunami of sanctions. Ay, there’s the rub; it’s all about Sovereignty. And a true sovereign power simply cannot live under permanent threats. It’s even feasible that Putin had wanted (italics mine) Russia to get sanctioned to death. After all, Russia is so naturally wealthy that without a serious challenge from abroad, the temptation is enormous to live off its rents while importing what it could easily produce.

Exceptionalists always gloated that Russia is “a gas station with nuclear weapons”. That’s ridiculous. Oil and gas, in Russia, account for roughly 15% of GDP, 30% of the government budget, and 45% of exports. Oil and gas add power to the Russian economy – not a drag. Putin shaking Russia’s complacency generated a gas station producing everything it needs, complete with unrivalled nuclear and hypersonic weapons. Beat that. Xavier Moreau is a French politico-strategic analyst based in Russia for 24 years now. Graduated from the prestigious Saint-Cyr military academy and with a Sorbonne diploma, he hosts two shows on RT France. His latest book, Ukraine: Pourquoi La Russie a Gagné (“Ukraine: Why Russia has Won”), just out, is an essential manual for European audiences on the realities of the war, not those childish fantasies concocted across the NATOstan sphere by instant “experts” with less than zero combined arms military experience.

Moreau makes it very clear what every impartial, realist analyst was aware of from the beginning: the devastating Russian military superiority, which would condition the endgame. The problem, still, is how this endgame – “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine, as established by Moscow – will be achieved. What is already clear is that “demilitarization”, of Ukraine and NATO, is a howling success that no new wunderwaffen – like F-16s – will be able to change. Moreau perfectly understands how Ukraine, nearly 10 years after Maidan, is not a nation; “and has never been less than a nation”. It’s a territory where populations that everything separates are jumbled up. Moreover, it has been a – “grotesque” – failed state ever since its independence. Moreau spends several highly entertaining pages going through the corruption grotesquerie in Ukraine, under a regime that “gets its ideological references simultaneously via admirers of Stepan Bandera and Lady Gaga.”

None of the above, of course, is reported by oligarch-controlled European mainstream media. The book offers an extremely helpful analysis of those deranged Polish elites who bear “a heavy responsibility in the strategic catastrophe that awaits Washington and Brussels in Ukraine”. The Poles actually believed that Russia would crumble from the inside, complete with a color revolution against Putin. That barely qualifies as Brzezinski on crack. Moreau shows how 2022 was the year when NATOstan, especially the Anglo-Saxons – historically racist Russophobes – were self-convinced that Russia would fold because it is a “poor power”. Obviously, none of these luminaries understood how Putin strengthened the Russian economy very much like Deng Xiaoping on the Chinese economy. This “self-intoxication”, as Moreau qualifies it, did wonders for the Kremlin. By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb, and blind that the destruction of the European economy has been a massive tactic, historic victory for the Hegemon – as much as the blitzkrieg against the Russian economy has been an abysmal failure.

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Konstantin Sivkov is Vice President of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences for Information Policy, Doctor of Military Sciences.

• Collapse of Operation Citadel 2.0 (Sivkov)

The goals of the Ukrainian army’s offensive in the summer of 2023 and the size of combat groups formed to carry it out are to a certain extent comparable with what the German military fielded for its Operation Citadel in 1943. This gives us the grounds for calling Kiev’s offensive in the summer of 2023 Operation Citadel 2.0. Considering its military-political consequences, the collapse of Citadel 2.0 meant not simply the Ukrainian army’s military-strategic defeat but also the collapse of the consolidated West’s hybrid blitzkrieg. We can state boldly that the so-called counteroffensive attempted by the Ukrainian military in the summer of 2023 was an event against whose background all the other developments could hardly attract so much attention. This is not surprising because this counteroffensive was of key significance in the standoff between the West and Russia as its outcome largely shaped not only the situation in the special military operation area, Russia and Ukraine but also trends of the changing global situation.

Therefore, it is quite natural that all leading media outlets paid much attention to the fronts of the special military operation, giving details of the tactical situation in key frontline areas. However, open sources of information have not yet offered an operational-strategic analysis of this key event of the past year at least in broad outline. This analysis is, perhaps, available in special classified literature, though, but is inaccessible to the public at large. That is why, this requires an operational-strategic review of the events that took place in the summer of 2023 in open media sources as this effort is vital for our people to understand their scope and significance. Aside from the operational-strategic aspect proper, we should pay attention to military-political implications of these developments. It is quite natural that we can hardly make such a detailed analysis within one article and, therefore, we will focus on the most important aspects showing the dimension and significance of these events.

We should primarily say that the actions undertaken by the Ukrainian army in the summer of last year were not a counteroffensive proper. This was a classical strategic offensive operation carried out by the Ukrainian army’s grouping. For this operation, the enemy created a formidable grouping of forces, which numbered almost 160,000 personnel (110 battalions), 2,100 tanks and other armored vehicles, 960 field artillery guns and 114 aircraft. Such an amount of artillery helped create a fire density of up to 10 guns per km of the frontline in the directions of the main attack. The Ukrainian military set up substantial stocks of ammunition: over 500,000 155mm shells, more than 150,000 shells of other calibers, 560,000 mortar rounds and 50 Storm Shadow long-range precision cruise missiles. This density of the Ukrainian army’s artillery and ammunition stocks enabled it to carry out as many as 190 firing missions daily.

The so-called strategic reserve created with the help of Western aid constituted the basis of that grouping of forces and included 20 brigade-level large units numbering 80,700 personnel, of whom more than 60,000 had undergone instruction in Western training centers on the territory of the United States, Britain, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Therefore, over 45% of the grouping’s personnel and more than 75% of the strategic reserve were trained under NATO standards. In other words, precisely the NATO-trained personnel confronted Russian troops .

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“..keeping Ukraine in an artificial shortage of weapons… allows [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to adapt to the intensity of hostilities..”

• Mood In Zelensky’s Office ‘Grim’ As US Aid Delayed – Politico (RT)

The “frustration” in Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s office is “palpable,” Politico reported on Friday. According to the news site, the Ukrainian president is growing impatient waiting for more military aid from Washington. The atmosphere in Kiev has been “quite grim, and frustration was palpable” in recent weeks, “a person close to Zelensky’s office” told Politico. “Almost everyone is convinced that the aid will come soon,” the source said, adding that “while the president’s office is waiting for good news from the US, it is also working to improve mobilization and war planning.” The US has already doled out around $45 billion in military aid to Kiev, out of a total of $113 billion allocated for Ukraine. However, the $45 billion war chest has been all but expended, and US President Joe Biden is currently lobbying Congress to pass a foreign aid bill that would include another $60 billion worth of arms, ammo, and other military support.

However, the bill has been stalled in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with the GOP refusing to bring it to a vote unless it is tied to increased funding for border security and a tightening of US immigration law. At a meeting in Lviv this week, Zelensky told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that Ukraine “will surely lose the war” if Congress fails to pass the bill, Schumer claimed on Friday. Russian forces captured the key Donbass town of Avdeevka last weekend, driving Ukrainian forces from a stronghold that they had occupied and fortified since 2014. Zelensky insisted from the moment Avdeevka fell that the town would have remained in Ukrainian hands had the US provided him with adequate weapons and ammunition. “Unfortunately, keeping Ukraine in an artificial shortage of weapons… allows [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to adapt to the intensity of hostilities,” he said.

The White House and the Pentagon have both warned that without more American funding, the situation in Avdeevka could soon be repeated in other Ukrainian-held cities and towns. Aside from a worsening shortage of ammunition, Zelensky is also facing a “critical” manpower shortage, the Washington Post reported earlier this month, adding that this deficit could result in collapse along the front. Ukraine has lost more than 383,000 men since the conflict began two years ago, according to the latest tally from the Russian Defense Ministry. Despite the scale of Kiev’s losses, Zelensky is currently aiming to conscript another 450,000-500,000 soldiers, using a mobilization law currently making its way through parliament. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Zelensky said that his military would soon “prepare a new counteroffensive, a new operation.”

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“[The] United States of America told [us that] we will be with you ‘as long as it takes.’ Now it’s time to keep the promises.”

• Ukraine Ready For War With China If US Asks – MP (RT)

Kiev is ready to assist the US in a war against any enemy, be it Iran, North Korea, or China, a senior Ukrainian MP has said, claiming that his country would prove to be a valuable military ally. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Friday, Aleksey Goncharenko doubled down on calls for the US to send Ukraine more military aid amid gridlock in Congress. “[The] United States of America told [us that] we will be with you ‘as long as it takes.’ Now it’s time to keep the promises.” Goncharenko rebuked US politicians for focusing too much on the looming 2024 presidential election, saying Ukraine should not be a “victim” of this. He also claimed that supporting Ukraine serves Washington’s interests regardless of who wins the race for the White House.

In the event of a future war, the Americans “will need people who will stand shoulder to shoulder with them,” but not many nations would be willing to go all-in to support the US, the lawmaker said. ”Ukrainians are ready… We are ready to stand with the United States shoulder-to-shoulder, either in trenches near Tehran, or in North Korea, or near Beijing. No difference,” he stated. “Because we appreciate your support.” Despite his plea for more Western military aid, Goncharenko argued that Ukraine has “the second strongest army in the free world” after the US, making it “a very valuable ally.”

“But today we need your support to defend our country,” he added, blaming gaps and delays in arms shipments for the loss of the strategic Donbass city of Avdeevka last week. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian retreat from the heavily fortified city, which was often used as a launching pad to target civilians in Donetsk, turned into a disorganized rout with heavy casualties. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the capture of Avdeevka is “certainly a success,” adding that it needs to be advanced further. Last year, Putin claimed that the Ukrainian government was defending the interests of other countries rather than its own, and that the West was using Kiev as “a battering ram” and a “testing ground” against Russia.

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“..governments in Western Europe “don’t understand that many in the east would never trust them again” if the Ukraine project fails..”

• Growing Rift Over Further Arming Ukraine ‘Jeopardizes EU Unity’ (Sp.)

There is a growing rift in Europe between the east and the west over continuing to aid the regime in Kiev, Bloomberg reported. Germany, Spain, Italy, and others are being pressured to dip deeper into their own stocks of arms, regardless of the fact that propping up Ukraine has been exhausting their own defense capabilities. Ukraine continues to fail on the battlefield, with the loss of its stronghold of Avdeyevka particularly painful for Kiev’s nationalists. Furthermore, Ukraine’s troops are also running critically low on stocks of artillery shells, feeding into the panicky sentiments gaining a foothold in diplomatic circles in countries that are staunch supporters of NATO’s proxy war against Russia. The latter are described as believing that once Moscow prevails in the Ukraine conflict, the entire “European integration project could be jeopardized,” with the aforementioned rift becoming “an indelible scar.”

Amid deepening fractures within the EU, governments in Western Europe “don’t understand that many in the east would never trust them again” if the Ukraine project fails, a top European official was cited warning. The West “doesn’t seem to get the urgency,” another official ostensibly said. How to scrape together funds to prop up the Kiev regime while not letting the EU exhaust its own defense capabilities was one of the concerns at the Munich Security Conference last weekend. With countries like France eager to kick start Europe’s own defense industry, as arming Ukraine has already resulted in depleted weapons and ammunition stocks, Eastern European countries are reportedly accusing the wealthier Western states of still not doing enough for Kiev. After sending billions’ worth of weapons to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s nationalist forces, the West is now facing a plethora of procurement problems.

Last month, several EU leaders and officials admitted that a joint initiative to give Kiev the promised one million artillery rounds before the end of March 2024 would not make the deadline. Furthermore, Eastern European countries are described as lamenting the procrastination over providing Ukraine with longer-range firepower. Support for Ukraine is “looking fragmented,” the outlet underscored. It recalled that earlier in the week, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell was quoted as writing to ministers, urging to dig “further into your stock, where possible; placing orders by procuring on your own or – preferably – jointly from the European industry; buying ammunition immediately available on the market; or financing Ukrainian industry.” However, countries such as France, Greece, and Cyprus are against dipping into EU funds to place orders with, for example, NATO ally Turkiye, according to cited sources.

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“I hate to say it, but I think it’s all about the money..”

• US Spent ‘Decades’ Worth of Weapons Supplies on War in Ukraine – Senator (Sp.)

US Republican Senator J.D. Vance has been a vociferous opponent of aid for the Kiev regime, warning at the Munich Security Conference that America’s defense industry doesn’t produce enough munitions for this. On the stalled Ukraine aid package in the Senate, Vance claimed that it would not “fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield.” The US has spent decades’ worth of weapons on the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said in an interview at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). As a result, the US has been thrust into a situation where it might not be able to meet the needs of its own national security, the Republican from Ohio warned. “We have expended decades’ worth of supplies of American weapons” on the Ukraine conflict, Vance said. He deplored the destruction of the American manufacturing base over the years, which has resulted in that, “We don’t make enough of that stuff on our own.”

“Yet at the same time they want us to send all of our critical weapons overseas,” the politician pointed out. According to Vance, “the elites of America have fundamentally failed their own people” in several ways in their reaction to the Ukraine conflict, and he called out the Democrats for being “obsessed with Russia,” the “Russia collusion hoax,” which has clouded their judgment. “It is absurd for the US to devote so many resources, so much attention, and so much time to a border conflict six thousand miles away while out own US southern border is wide open,” insisted the Republican, adding: “We now no longer have the weapons in store to actually prosecute our own national security. Let’s focus on our own problems.” In a broadside targeting President Joe Biden, whose US foreign aid package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine is currently stuck in Congress, he succinctly pointed out: “If the thing you care most about is a conflict six thousand miles away you should not be a leader of this country.”

Elsewhere during the CPAC interview, Vance speculated that the Biden administration’s lack of effort to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine is rooted in financial interests. “I hate to say it, but I think it’s all about the money,” Vance said on Friday, adding that lots of money and resources being sent to Ukraine are getting “skimmed off the top.” The Ohio senator attempted to get across the same message at the recent Munich Security Conference. Vance argued that the US cannot continue to support Ukraine as its defense industry doesn’t produce enough munitions. “You don’t win wars with GDP or euros or dollars. You win wars with weapons, and the West doesn’t make enough weapons,” he was quoted as saying. Weighing in on the stalled aid package to Ukraine, and whether it could make an impact if it passed the US House, the Republican was cited by Politico as saying: “it doesn’t change the fundamental facts — that we are limited in the munitions that we can send, that Ukraine is limited in terms of its own manpower. The situation has to fundamentally change for them to make significant battlefield gains.”

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They don’t want peace. They want a forever war.

• US Sees No Chance Of Ukraine Peace Before Election – WSJ (RT)

Western leaders have reportedly dismissed the possibility of reaching a negotiated peace agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict before US voters go to the polls later this year. “Officials in Washington and European capitals are skeptical about the prospects of any peace talks with Russia and discount any possibility of a deal before the US presidential elections in November,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The Kiev regime has insisted that Russian forces vacate all of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory, the outlet added, while US support could crumble if Donald Trump defeats incumbent President Joe Biden. The political stakes are even higher than when the Ukraine crisis began two years ago because Western leaders have invested billions of dollars in Kiev’s defense while repeatedly vowing to continue their backing “as long as it takes,” the WSJ said.

A Ukrainian defeat could shatter Washington’s geopolitical credibility, especially if Biden’s government fails to continue providing aid. “The level of US investment in the project of Ukraine’s independence has increased, and therefore the extent to which US credibility is judged based on Russia’s ability to accomplish or not accomplish its objectives in Ukraine,” Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Washington think tank RAND Corp., told the newspaper. “If there were to be a dramatic reversal of fortunes in Ukraine, there would be a whole lot more confidence in the emerging pseudo-bloc of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.” Moscow has always been open to peace negotiations and would welcome any US efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview earlier this month.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this week that neither Ukraine nor its Western backers are willing to end the bloodshed, leaving Moscow no choice but to continue fighting until its objectives are achieved. He suggested that the US election has little bearing on the issue because both Republicans and Democrats view Russia as an “adversary and a threat.” US House Republicans have meanwhile declined to approve Biden’s request for $60 billion in additional Ukraine funding. Washington ran out of money for Ukraine aid last month, after exhausting $113 billion in previously approved spending. Biden blamed Trump’s congressional allies for last week’s fall of Avdeevka, a key Donbass stronghold for Kiev, to Russian forces.

“It’s not just that American aid has been cut, but it’s been cut without warning and without giving us any time to adjust,” former Ukrainian Defense Minister Sergey Zagorodnyuk told the WSJ. He added, “If this crisis is not resolved, and Ukraine doesn’t receive the assistance, it will become a huge gift to Putin.” Washington’s European allies are so “spooked” by the potential loss of US protection that some German politicians have discussed seeking protection from nuclear-armed France and the UK, the report said. “It tells you about the level of doubt and fear about the world that we are entering – the one with the US not being there for us and where the hostile superpowers of Russia and China are potentially lining up against us,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.

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“..Tel Aviv has ignored nearly all of Washington’s requests over the past four months with no impact on US aid shipments to Israel.”

• Netanyahu’s Post-War Plans for Gaza Call for Indefinite Occupation (Antiwar)

Israel has released its first draft of its plans for post-war Gaza. Throughout the four months of a brutal onslaught, Israeli forces have decimated the Strip and killed 30,000 Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s post-war plans call for “operational freedom of action in the entire Gaza Strip without a time limit” and “demilitarization” of Palestinians. The Israeli government first released the document to some media outlets on Thursday. According to the translation from NBC News, the document says, Israel will “maintain its operational freedom of action in the entire Gaza Strip, without a time limit,” and “The security perimeter being created in the Gaza Strip on the border with Israel will remain as long as there is a security need for it.”

Israel is also requesting control of the border between Egypt and Gaza. Netanyahu’s plan may face resistance in Washington and Cairo. Egypt has demanded that Israel not deploy its forces along the border. The US has asked Israel not to expand buffer zones in Gaza. However, Tel Aviv has ignored nearly all of Washington’s requests over the past four months with no impact on US aid shipments to Israel. Netanyahu says he will not allow the rebuilding of the Strip to begin until the Palestinians have been “deradicalized.” Additionally, Tel Aviv plans to have complete control over the future political system in Gaza. Netanyahu says the Strip will be fully demilitarized. President Joe Biden has requested that Netanyahu allow Arab states to finance the reconstruction of Gaza and allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Gaza in the process of creating a sovereign Palestine.

Netanyahu’s proposal did not mention the PA. The Israeli government has repeatedly stated that it will not allow the PA to control Gaza or the Palestinians to have a state. In the statement released by the Israeli government, Netanyahu says, “Israel utterly rejects international diktats over a final-status agreement with the Palestinians.” Netanyahu additionally plans to shut down UNRWA, the main aid agency in Gaza, that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians rely on for survival. Tel Aviv recently accused the UN Relief and Works Agency of employing 12 people who took part in the Hamas attack in Israel. However, a US intelligence community assessment only endorsed the claim with “low confidence.”

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“Stop acting aggressive because you’re going to get the fight you’re asking for and you’re in no way prepared for it.”

• UK’s Failed Trident Missile Test Emblematic of Its ‘Decline and Demise’ (Sp.)

On Wednesday, US media reported that the UK Royal Navy tested an unarmed Trident II missile in January, but the missile failed, falling just feet from the submarine it launched from. The failure was the latest in a string of embarrassing events for the Royal Navy. The recent missile failure by the UK military “is entirely linked to the kind of decline and demise of the UK as a serious nation,” Phil Kelly, a political contributor and socialist activist told Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Thursday. “It’s a nation that is in a deep economic and political crisis, and the military reflects that,” Kelly underscored. “I compare them to the [Scooby-Doo] character Scrappy-Doo because they run around after the United States as a small henchman talking up a bit beyond their own capabilities,” he added before mentioning a string of failures by the UK Royal Navy, including two warships colliding in the Gulf of Yemen.

“It’s a clown show that really isn’t fit for [its] purpose.” Like the Scrappy-Doo character, the UK Royal Navy acts supremely confident in its abilities, but can not back up its bravado. “This is an army, let’s not forget, that retreated at speed after a failed 20-year occupation of Afghanistan. They were beaten by men in pickup trucks… who’s [now] shaking its saber and threatening Russia, China, and Iran,” Kelly explained. “It’s kind of like that small man syndrome in a bar. Stop acting aggressive because you’re going to get the fight you’re asking for and you’re in no way prepared for it.” Kelly noted that not only is the UK military experiencing significant equipment problems, but it is also failing to meet its recruitment goals, calling it a “huge crisis” and doubling down on the fact that the issues are not limited to the naval branch.

“They used to have this great tagline about their main battle tank, the Challenger Two, that they said… had not been lost on the battlefield since it launched a couple decades ago. The tank itself managed about two to three weeks when it arrived in Ukraine before one of them was left as a burning hulk.” “If [the failed Trident missile launch] happened in North Korea, Western media would have been laughing at it,” Kelly said. “Here, we have the UK completely unable to launch a missile, which has cost an exorbitant amount of money while health and education are falling into rack and ruin.”

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“This isn’t a conspiracy theory,” he said; the “invasion” at the U.S. southern border is “strategic engineered migration.”

• Former Panama Border Chief: UN Is Behind the Chaos at US–Mexico Border (ET)

The former director of Panama’s border patrol told The Epoch Times that the United Nations’ migration agenda is behind the chaos at the U.S. southern border and that U.N. partners are making things worse instead of better. Oriel Ortega, now a security and defense consultant to Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo, said during a Feb. 22 interview that he saw a jump in migration in 2016, at the same time that more nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) moved into Panama. That increase corresponded with the U.N.’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration meeting in 2016. Two years later, 152 nations—including Panama—voted in favor of the compact to manage global migration. The United States voted against it. But under the U.N., the migration process has been anything but orderly, Mr. Ortega said. “It’s completely opposite right now,” he said through an interpreter.

Documents show that in 2023, a record 500,000 migrants traveled through the dense jungle known as the Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama. Migrants from around the world are flying into South and Central America to start their journey because countries such as Suriname and Ecuador don’t require a visa to enter. Their final destination is the United States. The book “Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy,” written by Kelly Greenhill, suggests that weaker countries are using migration to destabilize their more powerful adversaries. Joseph Humire is the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society and an expert on unconventional warfare. He told The Epoch Times that he believes that’s what Americans are seeing at the U.S. southern border now. “This isn’t a conspiracy theory,” he said; the “invasion” at the U.S. southern border is “strategic engineered migration.”

Mr. Ortega agreed that the NGOs have “exacerbated” mass migration problems. “Instead of helping, they’re being part of the problem,” he said. “It’s not the migrants themselves that are creating a national threat; it is the organized crime, and it is these international organizations.” At the Lajas Blancas camp in Panama, migrants have access to a number of large maps provided by NGOs that display detailed migration routes heading to the United States. One map is from HIAS, an NGO founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which recently received $11 million from the United States in two grants awarded for Latin American migrants.

Paxton

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“If they cannot pay by tomorrow, we will begin kidnapping their children to hold as ransom.”

• New York Prosecutes Couple For Fraud (BBee)

Local couple Marty and Shelly Cross have been officially charged with fraud after listing their home for $499,000 when it ultimately sold for slightly less. “The Cross family knowingly and willfully tried to get a good deal when they sold their home,” explained Attorney General Letitia James. “The State of New York hereby assesses the Cross family a fine of $50 million for their egregious actions. If they cannot pay by tomorrow, we will begin kidnapping their children to hold as ransom.” According to sources, the bank had performed an appraisal and actually approved a loan for the buyer at $499,000, though ultimately after negotiations the selling price was slightly less. “Yes, the bank agreed to the price set by the Cross family,” admitted James.

“That doesn’t mean Mr. and Mrs. Cross did not commit fraud! Banks, as we all know, are poor and helpless and at the mercy of whatever amount of money people ask for. The feeble, powerless bank is the victim here, having been duped by the Cross family – and they will pay!” The Cross family were reportedly caught completely off guard by the charges, believing they had submitted a reasonable asking price. “All we did was ask for what we wanted! No one had to agree to it. I had no idea asking for the price you wanted for your home was illegal,” said Shelly. “I have to be frank, I just don’t quite see how our negotiating the price with the seller and the bank did fifty million dollars of damage to the State of New York. I’m really struggling to make the connection.” At publishing time, Letitia James had put up billboards across New York with the faces of the Cross family and how much they owed in fines.

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RFK Fauci

 

 

Vaxx

 

 

GVDB
https://twitter.com/i/status/1761118837934600475

 

 

Lion vs tiger

 

 

Couple
https://twitter.com/i/status/1761425708297994481

 

 

Leopard

 

 

bbee
https://twitter.com/i/status/1761453868947267894

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 10 2023

May 102023
 
 May 10, 2023  Posted by at 8:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  46 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Stairway at Auvers 1890

 

• Ukraine’s Future Lies in the Great Reset (Pabst)
• Any Ideology of Superiority Is Criminal – Putin (TASS)
• Globalist Elites Provoke Bloody Conflicts And Coups – Putin (RT)
• UN Chief Says Peace Talks Between Ukraine And Russia Impossible Now (RT)
• UN Skeptical About China Helping To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• ‘All’ NATO Members Support Ukraine Membership – Stoltenberg (RT)
• Can BRICS Save Argentina From Disaster? (Vargas)
• “We’re Back”: Tucker Carlson Moves Show To Twitter (ZH)
• Journalists-on-Journalists Crime (Patrick Lawrence)
• War for Profit: A Very Short History (Brad Wolf)
• Jury Rejects Rape Claim Against Trump But Finds Liable For ‘Sexual Abuse’ (ZH)
• If Hunter Is Indicted (Lipson)
• House Committee Prepares to Hold Blinken in Contempt (Turley)
• Australian Lawmakers Call On US To Drop Assange Extradition Bid (RT)
• Why the Release of Julian Assange Is Crucial for Our Future (Scheidler)

 

 

JFK WWII
https://twitter.com/i/status/1656006128722141185

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1656072328277573634

 

 

The power of propaganda.

 

KJP
https://twitter.com/i/status/1656000904959791104

 

 

Zel cartoon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1655688459590172674

 

 

Trunews

 

 

Note: he doesn’t confirm anything.

 

 

 

 

It’s all a literally bloody experiment.

• Ukraine’s Future Lies in the Great Reset (Pabst)

“Ukraine 2030 — the freest and most digital country in the world. Without bureaucracy, but with strong tech industry. Cashless & paperless. This is the future we are building.” These were the words of Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, who posted a glossy video showcasing Ukraine’s sci-fi-esque future to Twitter. The video boasts of Ukraine’s plans (after its victory over Russia, of course!) to become the “freest and most convenient country in the next 10 years.” In this theoretical scenario, Ukraine is “the first country to abandon paper money,” tele-health and tele-education programs abound, courts’ decisions are guided by artificial intelligence, and cities can even defend themselves with an “ultra-modern iron dome.”

But the juxtaposition between the video’s boasts and Ukraine’s dire reality on the ground grows more uncanny by the day.November 2022 reports quietly admitted that roughly 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded in action, and apparently leaked documents from April 2023 exposed Ukraine’s especially weak wartime positioning, where Ukrainian casualties outnumber those of the Russians four to one. Meanwhile, complaints of low ammunition — with Ukraine running through ammo faster than the US and NATO can replace it — run amok, and in Bakhmut’s “meat-grinder,” the estimated lifespan of Ukrainian soldiers in battle was reported as being a grim four hours in late February. Meanwhile, millions of Ukrainians have fled home as sky-high inflation rates and energy prices have slashed living standards in Europe and internationally.

But as the war drudges on, Ukrainian officials have zeroed in on the conflict’s alleged “silver linings,” bragging about the new technological developments and investment possibilities that have surfaced during the conflict, such as Ukraine’s “state in a smartphone” Diia app, the e-hryvnia, mounting technological capabilities spurred by corporate war-time involvement in Ukraine, a further crystallization of the public-private partnership as a civil society instrument, and Ukraine’s budding “green” revolution, which is slated to blossom during its prospective elite-backed reconstruction. While these and other initiatives taking place as part of Ukraine’s war-time and reconstruction efforts are being done in the name of modernization, convenience, and democracy, these efforts instead contribute to a technological and political terrain that is conducive to depriving the civilians of Ukraine, and all nations, of their sovereignty, privacy, and dignity.

As I illustrate in this investigative piece, such efforts are part of the larger drive towards the related phenomena of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, today’s technological revolution that blurs the physical, digital, and biological spheres, and the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, an elite-driven initiative to establish Klaus Schwab’s vision of stakeholder capitalism, where corporations are positioned as “trustees of society” to address the world’s economic and social woes.

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“..in essence, a system of robbery, violence and oppression.”

• Any Ideology of Superiority Is Criminal – Putin (TASS)

Any superiority ideology is, by definition, repulsive, deadly, and criminal, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the Victory Day parade on the Red Square on Tuesday. “We believe that any ideology of superiority is inherently disgusting, criminal, and deadly,” he said. At the same time, Putin added that Western elites “still talk about their exclusivity, put people against each other and divide society, provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred, Russophobia, aggressive nationalism, destroy those family, traditional values that make humans human.” All this, he said, is done in order “to continue dictating, imposing their will, rights and rules on the peoples – in essence, a system of robbery, violence and oppression.” “They seem to have forgotten what the Nazis’ insane claims to world domination led to,” the president added. “They have forgotten who defeated this monstrous, total evil, who stood as a wall for their homeland and did not spare their lives for the liberation of the peoples of Europe,” he said.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1655836194713006080

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“The Ukrainians became“hostages” of the coup that took place in the country in 2014 and were turned into “a bargaining chip” by the West..”

• Globalist Elites Provoke Bloody Conflicts And Coups – Putin (RT)

Western elites have forgotten the consequences of the Nazis’ “insane ambitions,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his Victory Day Parade speech on Red Square in Moscow. Russia believes that “any ideology of superiority is by its nature disgusting, criminal and deadly,”the president pointed out. “The globalist elites keep insisting on their exceptionalism; they pit people against each other, split societies, provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred, Russophobia and aggressive nationalism, destroy traditional family values that make human a human,” Putin said. According to the Russian leader, all this is being done by the US and allies in order to “further dictate their will, their rights and their rules” and implement what is basically “a system of robbery, violence and suppression” on the international stage.


“It seems that they have forgotten what the insane ambitions of the Nazis led to. They have forgotten who defeated this monstrous, total evil,” he stressed. Referring to the conflict in Ukraine, Putin said that “a real war has been unleashed against out Motherland. But we resisted international terrorism. We’ll also defend the residents of Donbass and assure our security.” The aim of the West is “to achieve the disintegration and destruction of our country, nullify the results of World War II, completely break down the system of global security and international law, and strangle any sovereign centers of development,” he insisted. The US and its allies are to blame for the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, the head of state said. “Overwhelming ambitions, arrogance and permissiveness inevitably lead to tragedies. This is the reason for the catastrophe that the Ukrainian people are now experiencing,” he pointed out. The Ukrainians became“hostages” of the coup that took place in the country in 2014 and were turned into “a bargaining chip” by the West, which uses the country to implement its “cruel selfish plans.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1655948103206465539

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The UN does not want peace.

• UN Chief Says Peace Talks Between Ukraine And Russia Impossible Now (RT)

The peace talks between Ukraine and Russia are impossible now, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with Spain’s El Pais published on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, I think that the talks on peace are impossible now,” he said. According to him, “both sides are convinced that they can win.” “We are in dialogue with both sides as far as possible to solve specific problems. The most important initiative was the export of grain from Ukraine… And now I do not see the possibility of an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations,” Guterres stated.

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And if peace were to break out regardless, then China should not be its agent. That would threaten the UN.

• UN Skeptical About China Helping To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Offers to mediate in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine are unlikely to come to fruition at the moment since both parties seem to be “fully involved” in continuing the war, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said. “Peace negotiations are not possible at this time,” Guterres told Spain’s El País newspaper in an interview. Asked whether the peace initiatives floated by China and Brazil, were “doomed to fail,” the UN chief said both parties to the conflict seemed to be too resolved to continue the hostilities for the mediation offers to work. “I already said that peace negotiations at this time are not going to happen. I hope in the future, yes. There was talk of a Russian offensive in the winter and a Ukrainian one in the spring. It is evident that the parties are fully involved into the war,” Guterres stated.

The grim prediction comes amid an apparent uptick in fighting, with both Moscow and Kiev ramping up long-range attacks against each other in recent days. The increase in military activities comes amid the long-hyped looming counteroffensive by Kiev’s forces, repeatedly cheered by the country’s top officials. Early this year, China unveiled a 12-point peace roadmap designed to bring the conflict, which has been raging since February 2022, to an end. The initiative got a positive reception in Moscow, with Russia’s top leadership signaling its readiness to discuss it further. However, the roadmap was received poorly by Kiev and its Western backers, who accused Beijing of allegedly already siding with Russia and, therefore, having no say on potential peace talks.

Brazil has also been actively pushing for Moscow and Kiev to come to the table, with the country having taken a neutral stance on the conflict. Brazilian President Lula da Silva has condemned both Russia’s military operation and the collective West for “encouraging war,” urging them to stop arming Kiev and to push for a ceasefire instead. “There is no use now in saying who is right, who is wrong. What we have to do now is stop the war,” Lula said late in April, claiming that “no one in the world is talking about peace except for me.”

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NATO wants no peace either. It wants to cross Russia’s no. 1 red line.

• ‘All’ NATO Members Support Ukraine Membership – Stoltenberg (RT)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has told the Washington Post that all member states have agreed to welcome Ukraine after it defeats Russia. He also revealed that the US-led military bloc had started backing Kiev in 2014. In the interview, conducted last week at the bloc’s Brussels headquarters and published on Tuesday, Stoltenberg told the WP’s editorial staff that “all NATO allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance.” “Then the question is when, and I cannot give you a timetable on that,” Stoltenberg added. The NATO head has made this claim once before, last month when he visited Kiev. This prompted a one-word response from Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, who suggested that the bloc had not actually bothered to obtain consent from Budapest.

Stoltenberg told the Post that NATO was currently helping Kiev “transition from Soviet-era equipment, doctrines and standards” and become “interoperable with NATO forces,” while reforming and modernizing their military and defense institutions. “The urgent task now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, because if Ukraine doesn’t prevail, then there is no issue to discuss at all.” According to Stoltenberg, NATO has two fundamental tasks “in the war,” one being to “support Ukraine,” the other to prevent escalation “by making absolutely clear that we are not party to the conflict.” The deployment of 40,000 troops to eastern Europe is also helping avoid escalation with Russia, he argued. The former Norwegian prime minister, who has been running NATO since October 2014, also revealed that the US, Canada, and the UK have provided 78% of the bloc’s support to Ukraine, and have been training Kiev’s troops since 2014.

“The war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed NATO, but then you have to remember the war didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014,” Stoltenberg told the Post, noting that all members of the bloc have “significantly increased” their military spending since then. Ukraine’s government was overthrown by US-backed nationalists in a February 2014 coup. The new authorities quickly moved to violently crush any opposition, leading Crimea to seek protection from Moscow. Protests against the coup government were met with a massacre in Odessa, terror in Kharkov, and a “punishment expedition” against Donetsk and Lugansk, which responded by declaring independence.

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“.. the more Argentina wants to produce, the more US dollars it needs..”

• Can BRICS Save Argentina From Disaster? (Vargas)

Argentina recently announced that it will be adopting the Chinese yuan, rather than the US dollar, for trade with the Asian giant – the latest development in a wider global process of de-dollarization. This comes as Argentina is currently pushing to formally join BRICS, for which it says it has the support of Brazil, India, and for which Russia and China have hinted at possible support in the past. Argentina is South America’s second-largest economy with significant potential to contribute to BRICS, but the country is also in the grips of an increasingly extreme economic crisis with runaway inflation that’s hitting new highs every week. Can a multipolar financial system help struggling economies like Argentina? Can this move away from the dollar, and membership of BRICS, save the country from potential disaster? Yes, but only if Argentina stops flip-flopping on economic and foreign policy decision-making.

Argentina’s economic turmoil has reached desperate levels, a result of debt slavery to the International Monetary Fund, lack of access to dollars, and a historic drought that has battered crucial agricultural exports. While the official exchange rate with the US dollar is 222 pesos for 1 USD, the ‘Dollar Blue’, the unofficial rate offered on the black market, reached up to 500 Pesos in recent days. For context, in 2014 under leftist President Cristina Kirchner, the official rate was 8 pesos for 1 USD and the unofficial rate hovered around 12-14 pesos. Annual inflation stands at 104% and Argentinians have attempted to combat this by holding their savings in US dollars, and even in cryptocurrency. The crypto market is not as bullish as it was a couple of years ago, and the Fed’s interest rate increases along with speculation within Argentina has made dollars very hard and expensive to access.

More importantly, the colossal debt built up with the IMF is dollar-denominated. Argentinian economist Gisela Cernadas, now working in China with Dongsheng News, spoke exclusively to RT and explained the perilous situation caused by dependency on the dollar. “Argentina has been suffering, for an extended period of time, from a structurally unbalanced current account,” she said. “This means that the country needs more US dollars to function than what it has. “To carry out its productive activities, Argentina needs immediate inputs that have to be imported, such as machinery and equipment that has to be imported in dollars,” Cernadas explained.

“Therefore, the more Argentina wants to produce, the more US dollars it needs. So, this structurally unbalanced current account puts pressure on the currency exchange market.” In this context, the move to de-dollarize trade with China is clearly a positive move, in so far as it will ease the stranglehold that the US dollar has on the country. It will also help protect the central banks’ foreign reserves. “Paying part of the imports from China using Chinese currency instead of the US dollar will help relieve the pressure on the current account deficit,” said Cernadas. “It’s not going to solve the structural problem of needing more foreign currency to produce and carry out its productive activity, but at least it will relieve parts of the demand they have.”

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“The rule of what you can’t say defines everything..”

Huge boost for Musk as well; he can showcase new Twitter features..

• “We’re Back”: Tucker Carlson Moves Show To Twitter (ZH)

According to Twitter owner Elon Musk, Twitter and Carlson have not signed “a deal of any kind whatsoever,” which we assume means that Tucker has found a clever way around his Fox contract which stipulated that he has to stay off the air until 2025 insofar as other networks are concerned. “Rewards means subscriptions and advertising revenue share (still working on software needed for latter), which is a function of how many people subscribe and the advertising views associated with his content,” Musk tweeted.

As hinted at in a Sunday Axios report, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced on Tuesday that he’s moving his show to Twitter. “There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world is Twitter,” Carlson said in a monologue – in which he took a shot at Fox, saying “If you bump up against the limits [in the news business] you will be fired for it.” “The rule of what you can’t say defines everything,” he said, adding “You can’t have a free society if people aren’t allowed to say what they think is true… There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one… is Twitter, where we are now.”


“Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops,” he continued, adding that other networks are “thinly disguised propaganda outlets.” “You see it on cable news, you talk about it on Twitter,” said Carlson. “The result may feel like a debate, but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge. We think that’s a bad system. We know exactly how it works and we’re sick of it.”

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“..the hoards of flunkies working for corporate media have it in for Tucker Carlson because he takes positions that are forbidden to them..”

• Journalists-on-Journalists Crime (Patrick Lawrence)

I’ve read a lot of smear since Fox News dismissed Tucker Carlson as its premier evening news presenter late last month. How could I not? It was everywhere, and more fecal matter is being flung Carlson’s way as we speak. My favorite in this line so far comes from The American Prospect. “Farewell to a Neo–Nazi Blowhard” was the head on its piece last week. Carlson, you see, is a “neofascist,” TAP wants us to know. What hollow hyperbole. How few are the level heads in mainstream media these days. How cavalierly do our liberal media debase the English language. How difficult it is to take journalists seriously as they attack another journalist because his views do not match theirs. What can we learn from all the unhinged denunciations we read daily?

What do they tell us about the predicaments of independent minds in journalism—and no matter what you think of Carlson, he has one—and by extension independent journalism altogether? In my read, independent media are in a state of siege that has escalated markedly of late. Although he worked for a corporate-owned cable network, I take Carlson’s fate as symptomatic of an intensifying attack on any media that deviate from the national security state’s ever more rigorously enforced orthodoxies. The past week brings grim news of the determination of political elites and deeply insecure mainstream media to stifle dissent in wall-to-wall fashion. It is time to pay close attention. This is more now than the grousing of a few independent journalists such as your columnist. Everything up to how we live and think is at stake.

Setting aside all the dross casting Carlson as the Beelzebub of our profession, the remarks that stay in my mind are of another kind. Diana Johnstone, the distinguished Europeanist who has corresponded from Paris for decades, sent a brief note after Fox’s announcement, calling Carlson “the last free voice on mainstream television.” I paused and wondered if I agreed. And then decided I did. “The TV host paid the price because he tried the impossible: straddling the divide between corporate media and critical journalism,” Jonathan Cook, who I hold in the same high regard I have for Johnstone, wrote last week on his blog. “He exposed ordinary Americans to critical perspectives, especially on U.S. foreign policy, that they had no hope of hearing anywhere else—and most certainly not from so-called ‘liberal’ corporate media outlets like CNN and MSNBC.

[..] the hoards of flunkies working for corporate media have it in for Tucker Carlson because he takes positions that are forbidden to them. Among these many, Carlson opposes the war in Ukraine, the military-industrial complex, covert coup operations in Cuba and elsewhere, Washington’s subterfuge at the United Nations and America’s imperialist project altogether. Carlson took Seymour Hersh’s report on the Biden’s regime’s covert op to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines for what it is: a tour de force piece of work by the premier investigative reporter now writing. Corporate-paid journalists detest Carlson for these things. I imagine there is a lot of subliminal envy attaching to Tucker Carlson’s professional performance over the years.

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“Senator Nye suggested that upon a declaration of war by Congress, taxes on annual income under $10,000 should automatically be doubled and higher incomes should be taxed at 98%.”

“If such policies were enacted, businessmen would become our leading pacifists.”

• War for Profit: A Very Short History (Brad Wolf)

TIn 1934 a book written by Helmuth Engelbrecht called The Merchants of Death became a best seller. The book exposed the unethical business practices of weapons manufacturers and analyzed their enormous profits during World War I. The author concluded that “the rise and development of the arms merchants reveals them as a growing menace to World Peace.” While not the only reason for the US entering the war, it became clear the Merchants of Death lobbied both Congress and the President for war. The American public was incensed. In 1934 almost 100,000 Americans signed a petition opposing increased armament production. Veterans paraded through Washington DC in 1935 in a march for peace. And Marine Major General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner, published his book War is a Racket, claiming he had been “a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers.

In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.” His book too became a bestseller. The growing wave of public outrage led Senator Gerald Nye to initiate congressional hearings investigating whether US corporations, including weapons manufacturers, had led the United States into World War I. In two years, the Nye committee held 93 hearings and called more than 200 witnesses to testify, including JP Morgan and Pierre S. DuPont. The committee conducted an extensive investigation searching the records of weapons manufacturers. They uncovered criminal and unethical actions including bribery of foreign officials, lobbying the United States government to obtain foreign sales, selling weapons to both sides of international disputes, and the covert undermining of disarmament conferences.

“The committee listened daily to men striving to defend acts which found them nothing more than international racketeers, bent upon gaining profit through a game of arming the world to fight itself,” Senator Nye declared in an October 1934 radio address. The Senate Nye Committee recommended price controls, the transfer of Navy shipyards out of private hands, and increased industrial taxes. Senator Nye suggested that upon a declaration of war by Congress, taxes on annual income under $10,000 should automatically be doubled and higher incomes should be taxed at 98%. A journalist wrote at the time, “If such policies were enacted, businessmen would become our leading pacifists.” The American public was outraged at the committee’s findings and so created some of the largest peace organizations the country had ever known.

Committed to staying out of all future European wars, American college campuses in the 1930s had thousands of students taking oaths swearing they would never fight in a foreign war. Farmers, laborers, intellectuals, ministers, people from all walks of life declared they would never again participate in a war fought to increase the profits of corporations. And then, business fought back. They lobbied those in Congress to cut off funding for the Nye committee, which they soon did. A smear campaign was orchestrated against Senator Nye. The committees’ days were numbered. In the end, the Nye Committee demonstrated that “these businesses were at the heart and center of a system that made going to war inevitable. They paved and greased the road to war.”

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2012 episode of Law and Order SVU.

• Jury Rejects Rape Claim Against Trump But Finds Liable For ‘Sexual Abuse’ (ZH)

A New York City jury has found former President Trump liable for sexual assault, but not rape, in a New York defamation case brought by accuser E. Jean Carroll. The jury awarded Carroll $20,000 in punitive damages for a battery claim, and $2.7 million in compensatory damages for defamation by Trump. The verdict came after less than three hours of deliberation by jurors in US District Court in lower Manhattan. The jury did not find Trump liable for rape, as Carroll alleged. Trump, who has long-denied her allegation dating back to the mid-90s, accused Carroll of using false claims as a way to promote her book. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,” the-then president told The Hill in an interview at the White House in June 2019.

“U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation shortly before noon. If they believe Carroll, jurors can award compensatory and punitive damages. Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her. Kaplan told jurors that the first question on the verdict form will be to decide whether they think there is more than a 50% chance that Trump raped Carroll inside a store dressing room. If they answer yes, they will then decide whether compensatory and punitive damages should be awarded. If they answer no on the rape question, they can then decide if Trump subjected her to lesser forms of assault involving sexual contact without her consent or forcible touching to degrade her or gratify his sexual desire. If they answer yes on either of those questions, they will decide if damages are appropriate.” -AP

The nine-member panel began discussing verdicts at 11:50 a.m. ET after Judge Lewis Kaplan gave his final instructions and a 10-question verdict form. Carroll, 78, sued Trump in 2019, claiming the Republican sexually assaulted her in 1995 or 1996 in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. Because the alleged attack happened decades ago, Carroll was originally barred from suing over sexual battery, pushing her to sue for defamation over allegedly disparaging comments Trump made about the rape allegation. Trump denied her allegation at the time and accused her of using false claims as a way to promote her book. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,” the-then president told The Hill in an interview at the White House in June 2019. The D.C. Court of Appeals was then asked to weigh in on whether Trump was acting within the scope of his presidential duties when he denied raping Carroll and dismissed her during the interview. Trump last October called her claims “a hoax” and “a lie.”

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Today is Comer’s day.

• If Hunter Is Indicted (Lipson)

First, a pardon would set off the biggest political firestorm since Watergate. It would look worse than self-dealing, bad as that is. It would look like the president is covering up his family’s corruption, not only to get Hunter off the hook but to prevent the disclosure of damning evidence in court. That evidence is likely to touch many more Biden family members than Hunter, and perhaps the president himself. The more Biden family members who are implicated, the more the whole operation looks like a concerted operation to monetize Joe’s political position. It also might threaten to shred Joe’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about any family business interests or influence peddling. The wider the sleaze, the harder it is to sell that story.

The chairman of the House committee investigating these issues has said Hunter’s corruption was merely one part of the family business. And that business was selling influence. Rep. James Comer has publicly said that his House Oversight Committee has already collected evidence that nine Biden family members are involved in sketchy business deals, including substantial payments from foreign firms. Some of those firms are closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Comer added that his committee is investigating the possible involvement of at least three more family members, as well as Joe Biden’s own role. His conclusion: “The entire Biden family” is entrapped in the financial enrichment scheme. So far, however, Comer hasn’t named names or provided the evidence. He says he will provide much more at a major press conference Wednesday.

Comer’s principle suggestion is that the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme is much broader, and their criminal actions more serious, than isolated schemes perpetrated by the president’s conniving second son. He adds that his evidence points to Joe Biden’s direct involvement, including possible payments for official actions. That is what he told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, although he hasn’t yet provided the evidence for that incendiary allegation. Comer is also attacking the FBI for desultory investigation – which ignored much of the malfeasance – and calling out the mainstream media for its concerted silence.

The Internal Revenue Service might be implicated, too, since a lot of payments – and a lot of Hunter’s income – went through what Comer calls the family’s “web of LLCs.” A senior supervisory agent at the IRS is seeking whistleblower protection to tell Congress about “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed” in investigating Hunter’s taxes. If political pressure really was applied to the IRS over Hunter’s taxes, or if senior agents acted improperly to curry favor, those would obviously be very serious matters, legally and politically. Comer and the House Republicans in the committee’s majority want that testimony under oath and are seeking responses from the IRS and DOJ.

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“The question is whether Blinken and the Administration really want to test this in court.”

• House Committee Prepares to Hold Blinken in Contempt (Turley)

The House of Representatives and the Biden Administration appear in a staring contest waiting for any sign of Blinken. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the House Foreign Affairs Committee is moving to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoena requests related to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. There is no question that the Committee has a legitimate oversight interest in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan at a huge loss of life, abandonment of thousands of allies, and seven billion dollars in military equipment. The committee specifically wants to review a full copy of a dissent cable that had been signed by nearly two dozen State Department officials warning Blinken of a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan a month before the terrorist group’s takeover occurred.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the cable undermines the claims of the Biden Administration that it had no forewarning of the chaos that would unfold in the country. The State Department has stonewalled the Committee, offering oral testimony and a summary while refusing to turn over the document. In his letter, McCaul warned that “the Department is now in violation of its legal obligation to produce these documents and must do so immediately.” McCaul added that “It strains credulity to believe that the official responsible for preparing the cable summary and briefing Congress on it would be unable to provide this information.” This has not been a great month for Blinken. He was earlier identified as the Biden campaign associate who “triggered” the infamous letter of 51 former intelligence officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely “Russian disinformation.”

He was then named as a contact of Hunter Biden in the Obama Administration as part of an alleged influence peddling operation. (Blinken previously denied such contacts and was accused of lying under oath). The withdrawal from Afghanistan has been condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike. Given the loss of lives and equipment (as well as the impact on U.S. standing), there could not be more obvious subject matter for congressional inquiry. The question is whether Blinken and the Administration really want to test this in court. Attorney General Merrick Garland would likely decline to prosecute Blinken for contempt (despite his green lighting such prosecutions against former Trump officials), but the Congress could go to court to compel production.

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“..during a meeting with US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy in Canberra on Tuesday..”

• Australian Lawmakers Call On US To Drop Assange Extradition Bid (RT)

A delegation of Australian lawmakers called for the United States to end its attempts to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange during a meeting with US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy in Canberra on Tuesday. The ‘Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group’ informed Washington’s chief diplomat in Australia that its citizens had expressed “widespread concern” at the continued detention in Britain of the WikiLeaks founder, who is an Australian national, as well as attempts to extradite him to the United States to face espionage charges. In 2010, Assange’s WikiLeaks platform published sensitive US government documents leaked by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. “There are a range of views about Assange in the Australian community and the members of the parliamentary group reflect that diversity of views,” the cross-party group said in a statement following the meeting with Kennedy on Tuesday.

“But what is not in dispute in the group is that Mr. Assange is being treated unjustly.” The group’s co-chair, independent MP Andrew Wilkie, added on Tuesday that the Australian parliament had also expressed “broad concern” for Assange, as outlined in statements of support last week by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton. Albanese, in particular, was a noted critic of Assange’s detention throughout his successful election campaign in 2022. Assange is currently in London’s Belmarsh prison as he continues a legal battle to fight extradition to the United States, where he is facing espionage charges related to WikLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of government documents pertaining to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, in addition to diplomatic cables. If convicted, Assange faces a sentence of 175 years in a maximum security prison.

Washington maintains that Assange’s actions put the lives of US servicemen in danger. His supporters, however, argue that Assange is being unfairly targeted by Washington following the damaging leaks, which exposed malfeasance by US personnel during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In April, 48 Australian lawmakers co-signed a letter addressed to US Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they said the United States’ pursuit of “journalist and publisher” Assange “set a dangerous precedent” for press freedom. US President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Sydney on May 24 for the Quad Leaders’ Summit, where he will meet with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan. Albanese has not said whether he intends to raise the issue with Biden during his visit.

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“Wars cannot be fought without lies because most populations reject these wars as soon as they know the truth about them..”

• Why the Release of Julian Assange Is Crucial for Our Future (Scheidler)

What is Julian Assange in prison for? He is in prison for showing the truth about our wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. War and lies are very closely related. Wars cannot be fought without lies because most populations reject these wars as soon as they know the truth about them. Governments never tell the truth about their wars, because otherwise they lose the support of the population. Embedded journalists do not tell us the truth about the wars. After the disaster of the Vietnam War, various concepts have been developed to allow journalists to go to war theaters only embedded, accompanied by the respective military. We saw this in Iraq, we saw it in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Only a few journalists had the opportunity to look behind the scenes. That is why leaks, confidential sources and journalists like Julian Assange are so important.

Reporting the dirty truth about wars, no matter from which side they are waged, is crucial so that these wars can no longer be waged in the future. Let me give a few examples of this from history. In the Vietnam War, reporting by courageous journalists, often citing anonymous sources or using leaks, played a decisive role in ending the bloodshed. One of the most important steps was the story revealed by Seymour Hersh in 1969 about war crimes in My Lai, Vietnam. At that time, U.S. troops murdered hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, in the village. This story and the images of it were instrumental in turning popular sentiment against this war. Another important revelation was the so-called Pentagon Papers, published by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg with the help of journalists.

They showed that several U.S. governments had systematically lied to the population about the Vietnam War, about its motives, about its scale, and about its methods. It came out that not only Vietnam was bombed, but also Laos and Cambodia. An estimated three to four million people died in that war. These reports and the largely anonymous sources on which they were based were instrumental in bringing this war to an end. This was later followed by the revelations of the secret programs used by the CIA to illegally spy on U.S. citizens. These revelations, again by Seymour Hersh, led to the establishment of the so-called Church Commission in 1975 to provide parliamentary oversight of the intelligence agencies – an important step in defense of democracy. We then saw a new phase of wars with the start of the so-called war on terror after September 11. In 2004, Seymour Hersh exposed U.S. torture practices at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Wikileaks and Julian Assange are part of this long tradition. In 2010 and 2011, based largely on information from Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks exposed a whole series of crimes committed by our governments that shocked the world. Among them was a document that showed how the CIA tried to mobilize sentiment in Germany and France for the war in Afghanistan. A headline from this document is telling: “Why it is not enough to count on the apathy of the Germans.” The point was to mobilize people for an expansion of operations in Afghanistan through manipulated information.

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Yeadon

 

 

Bigotry porn

Smile
https://twitter.com/i/status/1655975832450478081

 

 

 

 

Bird dog

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 25 2022

Sep 252022
 
 September 25, 2022  Posted by at 8:24 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  69 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Night fishing at Antibes 1939

 

• Ukraine, EU’s Dictatorship And Change Of Global Order – Lavrov (RT)
• Russia Calls Out Western Elites At UN (RT)
• Hungarian FM Warns Of Apocalyptic Conflict (RT)
• As Democracy Dies in the EU, Von der Leyen Reveals its Sins (Luongo)
• Azov Delegation Visits the US (MR)
• Strike Kills Hundreds Of Foreign Fighters In Ukraine – Russia (RT)
• Germany Needs Russian Gas – Saxony PM Kretschmer (RT)
• Truss’s Extreme Right-Wing Putsch (Pettifor)
• The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire (Doug Casey)
• Ukraine: The CIA’s 75-year-old Proxy (Sussman)
• Ford Forced To Park Thousands Of Unfinished Vehicles (RT)
• Republicans Push For Special Counsel In Hunter Biden Probe (CB)
• WaPo Columnist Calls for the End of Impartiality and Balance (Turley)
• Covid Update: What Is The Truth? (NIH)

 

 

 

 

Ritter

 

 

 

 

Amish warp speed

 

 

 

 

 

 

“[Zelensky] advised everyone who feels Russian to ‘go to Russia’ for the benefit of their children and grandchildren. That’s what the residents of said regions are doing now, taking their lands, on which their ancestors lived for centuries, with them”.

• Ukraine, EU’s Dictatorship And Change Of Global Order – Lavrov (RT)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke at the 77th UN General Assembly on Saturday, explaining Russian stance on the key international issues, relationship with the collective West and the ongoing conflict with Ukraine. After delivering his speech at the UNGA, Lavrov gave a big press conference on the sidelines of the event. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is largely a result of the inability of the collective West to negotiate with Russia and address its security concerns, Lavrov told the UNGA. All the repeated attempts to establish the rules of co-existence made by Moscow have been ignored, he said. “We have repeatedly proposed over the years to agree on the rules for coexistence in Europe based on the principle of equal and indivisible security, approved at the highest level of OSCE documents. We made our last proposal to make this principle legally binding in December 2021, to which we received an arrogant refusal,” Lavrov stated.

Ukraine has become a mere tool for Washington to maintain its global dominance and target Russia, the top diplomat believes. “It is evident to any unbiased observer: for the Anglo-Saxons, who have completely subjugated Europe, Ukraine is simply expendable material in the fight against Russia. NATO declared our country a direct threat on the path to total US dominance, and named China as a long-term strategic challenge,” Lavrov told the UNGA. The minister further elaborated on the matter at the press conference after his speech, stating that Moscow already views the US and its NATO bloc as parties of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Recently, Ukrainian military has admitted that the Pentagon chooses targets for them, he explained. “What is this if not a direct participation in aiming of deadly weapons and participation in the war?” Lavrov said.

Russia’s top diplomat also touched upon the ongoing referendums in the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics, as well as in the Russian-controlled parts of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. While the vote has already triggered a “tantrum” in Ukraine and in the West, with the G7 vowing even more anti-Russian sanctions, the referendums are actually fully in line with Kiev’s wishes, Lavrov suggested. “The people living there are essentially only reacting to what President Zelensky recommended for them to do in one of his interviews in August 2021. Back then, he advised everyone who feels Russian to ‘go to Russia’ for the benefit of their children and grandchildren. That’s what the residents of said regions are doing now, taking their lands, on which their ancestors lived for centuries, with them”.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington’s strive for global domination and exceptionalism has reached an unprecedented height, resulting in multiple aggressive wars and claiming lives of “many hundreds of thousands” of people worldwide, Lavrov stated. “Having proclaimed victory in the Cold War, Washington elevated itself almost to the rank of the messenger of God on earth, with no obligations, but only “sacred” rights to act with impunity, as it pleases and anywhere,” Lavrov said. Any nation can fall victim to Washington’s ambitions should it somehow anger the “self-styled masters of the world,” Lavrov warned. That fate has befallen people of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and other countries, he added.

The EU, while being “subjugated” by the US, is showing same symptoms of exceptionalism and arrogance, Lavrov believes. The minister recalled fresh remarks by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who threatened Italy with consequences should the upcoming polls actually show the projected right-wing tilt. “This is arrogance, sense of impunity, exceptionalism. Only they have the right to make judgments. What Mrs. von der Leyen said about the Italian elections was astounding,” Lavrov told the press conference, adding that he did not recall such threats made by an EU leader before. “The European Union, in principle, is becoming an authoritarian, rigid, dictatorial entity,” the top diplomat said.

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A bit more Lavrov.

• Russia Calls Out Western Elites At UN (RT)

Years of NATO encroachment on Russia and the West’s refusal to negotiate over Ukraine left Russia “no choice” but to launch its special military operation, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN on Saturday. However, Lavrov added that Russia is now shaping “the future of the world order.” “The US and its allies want to stop the march of history,” Lavrov declared from the podium in New York, describing how in the aftermath of the Cold War, Washington appointed itself “almost an envoy of God on earth,” launching foreign conflicts at will and expanding the NATO alliance deeper into Eastern Europe. The shifting of NATO’s borders to the east and its official declaration of interest in the Indo-Pacific region mean that the US-led bloc “now has the goal of subjugating the Asian area,” Lavrov stated.

However, it was the West’s refusal to negotiate over Ukraine that led Russia to fight back, he continued. “The West watched in silence as the coup plotters started bombing the east of Ukraine,” he said, referring to Kiev’s attacks on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics even after the Minsk agreements had been signed in 2014 and 2015. “Were we supposed to put up with Kiev’s attempt to ban the Russian language, education, Russian media and culture? The demands of chasing Russians out of Crimea? The declaration of war against the Donbass, the population of which was declared not human beings, but ‘creatures’ by both the former and the current Kiev’s authorities?”

Once the US and NATO rejected a Russian-proposed security deal for Ukraine, Moscow had “no choice but to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and start a special military operation,” Lavrov said, adding that “any sovereign self-respecting state would do the same, a state that understands its responsibility to its own people.” Seven months into that operation, and with Russia recently announcing the mobilization of some 300,000 additional troops, Lavrov told the assembly that “the future of the world order is being decided,” with the US-led “unipolar” model “receding into the past.”

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“It’s a definite red line for us. We don’t want to force the Hungarian people, who are in no way responsible for the war, to pay for it..”

• Hungarian FM Warns Of Apocalyptic Conflict (RT)

The international community should now focus on ensuring that the current escalation between Moscow and NATO does not spiral into a direct military conflict, the Hungarian foreign minister has said. Speaking to Russian news outlet RIA Novosti while in New York for the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, Peter Szijjarto said: “If you ask me, the most important task now is to prevent tensions in relations between Russia and NATO from growing into an open military confrontation.” The diplomat warned that the consequences would be catastrophic. Szijjarto went on to say that, like others from his generation, he had always hoped that he would never experience a war as devastating as WWII.


“We don’t want to put the existence of the planet on the line, because a direct conflict between NATO and Russia has no end, and everyone knows what it means,” he warned. According to Szijjarto, Hungary, which is a member of the military alliance itself, is doing its best to prevent this doomsday scenario. On Friday, he indicated that Budapest will not rush to impose new sanctions on Moscow, especially those affecting energy supplies. “It’s a definite red line for us. We don’t want to force the Hungarian people, who are in no way responsible for the war, to pay for it,” Szijjarto said. He also warned that the European economy is sliding into recession due to the punitive measures against Russia already in place.

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“..Von der Leyen and her merry tribe of vandals in Brussels cast themselves as the protectors of the sacred right of a ‘democracy’ they deny to anyone who disagrees with her.”

• As Democracy Dies in the EU, Von der Leyen Reveals its Sins (Luongo)

It’s no secret at this point that the EU is an anti-democratic organization. The leadership isn’t elected, but selected from a pre-determined pool of candidates from within the Party structure. Everyone with the power to make a decision was placed there not by popular vote but by backroom collusion. As we approach this weekend’s Italian elections there is real despair in the air that there is any light out of this dark time. That no matter what decisions we try to make, they are only in service of those that seek total dominion. And yet all you hear from these Eurocrats is that we are in a “war of Democracy versus Autocracy,” as EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen put it in her hellish EU state of the union address to the European Parliament recently.

Cloaking herself in the inverse of the EU flag’s colors to show solidarity with another anti-democratic regime, Ukraine, Von der Leyen and her merry tribe of vandals in Brussels cast themselves as the protectors of the sacred right of a ‘democracy’ they deny to anyone who disagrees with her. The same can be said for nearly every major government in Europe. Every time an ‘election’ rolls around the local system is gamed to ensure a particular outcome. The political establishment always coalesces around maintaining the status quo, freezing out any possibility of an ‘unworkable’ or ‘representative’ coalition. Any outcome they can’t overcome that lies outside the scope of the EU’s values is either laden with poison pills, immediately put under pressure by the EU’s Byzantine rules, and eventually forced out of office.


There is no better example of this anti-democratic structure made flesh than Italy. For more than a decade Italians have been saddled with mostly-unelected technocratic governments who, at best, stymie any populist/sovereigntist impulses within Italy’s electorate or, at worst, advance the EU’s centralization agenda under the false rubrics of Climate Change and “European Values.” European Values is a phrase that is synonymous with the phrase “rules-based order.” We make the rules, they say, and you abide by them. We’re allowed to break those rules because 1) we can and 2) we are the goodies. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that as the Italians go to the polls this weekend with the center-right coalition led by the Brothers of Italy (FdI) likely to win a major, uncontestable victory, the unelected, openly totalitarian President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, openly threaten Italians to ‘vote right’ or face her wrath.

Meloni

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Italy bad, Azov good.

• Azov Delegation Visits the US (MR)

Half a dozen representatives of the neo-Nazi-led Azov movement in Ukraine are currently visiting the United States, taking meetings in Washington and reaching out to Ukrainian Americans. Three are veterans of the far-right Azov Regiment who held out for numerous weeks in the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. Among them is Giorgi Kuparashvili, a co-founder of the Azov Regiment and a leader of its Yevhen Konovalets Military School, named for the founder of the fascistic Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. According to journalist Leonid Ragozin, “The school functioned outside Ukraine’s system of military education — one of many reasons to suspect that Azov was highly autonomous and never truly integrated in [the] armed forces.”

The Azov veterans were accompanied by two wives and a mother of POWs from Azovstal, including Kateryna Prokopenko, who is married to the just-freed, far-right Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko. (According to the US-funded Radio Svoboda, the Georgian-born Kuparashvili mentored Prokopenko.) The three women represented the Azovstal Defenders’ Family Association, led by Kateryna Prokopenko. The group first made an impromptu appearance at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey (UACCNJ) in Whippany on Saturday, September 17. The last minute event, thrown together the day before, promised to “dispel the Russian agitprop that the Azov regiment is nazi.” The UACCNJ warned Facebook followers, “WE ARE NOT RECOMMENDING THAT YOU BRING YOUNG CHILDREN,” but the audience appears to have mostly consisted of children from its Saturday school.

According to Michael Hrycak, the New Jersey Department Commander of the Ukrainian American Veterans (UAV), his organization invited Azov “to visit the United States to spread their story about holding out in Mariupol.” He claimed the delegation would be giving testimony to Congress and the United Nations. The Defense Ministry of Ukraine tweeted that they should. Walter Kovbasniuk, the past commander of UAV Post 17 in Passaic, New Jersey, exchanged “Azov’s signature salute” with a former POW, “their fists held tight across their chests.” Leonid Ragozin has described this “making ‘from heart to the sun’ gesture” as “a crypto-fascist substitute for Sieg Heil.” In Washington DC, the Azov delegation met with a North American leader of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and at least a few members of Congress: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL).

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“Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu revealed that Russian forces and the militias of the Donbass republics had eliminated more than 2,000 foreign mercenaries.”

• Strike Kills Hundreds Of Foreign Fighters In Ukraine – Russia (RT)

Up to 300 foreigners fighting for Kiev against Moscow have been killed in Nikolayev Region in southern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. “Up to 300 militants were eliminated by a missile attack on the point of temporary deployment of foreign mercenaries in the area of the village of Kalinovka, Nikolayev Region,” the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, announced during his daily briefing. This adds to a growing list of foreign combatants who have lost their lives fighting for Ukraine. Earlier this week, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu revealed that Russian forces and the militias of the Donbass republics had eliminated more than 2,000 foreign mercenaries.

As of September 21, 1,000 foreigners remained in the ranks of the Ukrainian military, according to the minister, whereas in April the number was estimated at 3,000. Russian forces also eliminated more than 200 Ukrainian troops in Nikolayev Region, and almost as many more in Kharkov Region and in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Konashenkov said. The military spokesman also revealed during the briefing that in the vicinity of the village of Sergeyevka, in southeastern Dnepropetrovsk Region, a Russian fighter shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 that had been “converted to use American HARM anti-radar missiles.” Since the launch of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in late February, Moscow has been warning Western countries to stop“pumping up” Ukraine with weapons, arguing that it would only prolong the conflict.

However, in the wake of Russia’s recent announcement of a partial mobilization of reservists, Kiev’s supporters, including the US and UK, have pledged to sustain or increase their military assistance to Ukraine. On Friday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky admitted that his country’s forces have been suffering at least 50 casualties a day. He claimed, however, that the Russian side was losing several times more. Zelensky’s comments came soon after Shoigu’s announcement that Russia’s forces have lost 5,937 troops since the beginning of the military offensive. According to the minister, the losses on the Ukrainian side were ten times higher, at an estimated 61,000 soldiers dead.

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Kretschmer keeps calling for détente.

• Germany Needs Russian Gas – Saxony PM Kretschmer (RT)

Russian gas supplies are critical for Germany, and will remain so in the foreseeable future despite Berlin’s attempts to diversify its energy sources, Saxony’s minister-president Michael Kretschmer warned. In an interview with the newspapers belonging to Germany’s Funke Mediengruppe on Saturday, Kretschmer said: “We are already witnessing that we can’t do without Russian gas.” The official added that the sanctions imposed by Berlin over Russia’s offensive against Ukraine have “contributed to this shortage situation.” According to Kretschmer, Berlin should try to make sure that it keeps receiving Russian gas after the armed conflict in Ukraine is over. He added that the current exorbitant prices for the fuel are ruining Germany’s industry.


As a stopgap measure to alleviate the situation Saxony’s governor suggested prolonging the operational lives of Germany’s three nuclear power plants, as well as reactivating some of the existing facilities that had previously been shut down. According to the German government’s current plans, two of the three remaining nuclear power plants should be kept on stand-by until mid-April 2023. However, barring any changes, all nuclear facilities will be disconnected from the German grid by the end of this year. Saxony’s minister-president went on to say that Germany should not give up its ambitious plans to become climate neutral, but noted that a “new path” is needed. The governor explained that previous plans to use “gas as a bridge technology” are apparently not going to materialize. Apart from prolonging the use of nuclear power plants, Kretschmer also suggested turning more to Qatar as a gas supplier and also tapping domestic gas supplies.

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“An unelected government that has chosen this moment to use the power of the state to capture public wealth and divert it to the top ranks of the private sector..”

Markets don’t like this at all. Sterling and gilts are off a cliff.

• Truss’s Extreme Right-Wing Putsch (Pettifor)

Budgets often reflect nothing more than the dreams and aspirations of a finance minister. Today Britain’s finance minister presented a budget which revealed something more sinister. The overthrow of the Johnson government was indeed a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to dislodge the electoral mandate (for “levelling up”) of a government and replace it with an undemocratic mandate to serve the interests of the very rich, while bearing (or “levelling”) down on the poor. This IS the right wing Revolt of the Rich. Johnson’s elected government’s 2019 manifesto promised: “Millions more invested every week in science, schools, apprenticeships and infrastructure while controlling debt.”


UK 10 Year Bond Chart

Today, the Debt Management Office reported effectively that debt was no longer being controlled – but would expand by £72 billion by the end of this year -£45bn of which is attributed to the debt-financed tax-cutting package “that sparked a historic increase in borrowing costs.” Britain now has an extreme right-wing government with no electoral mandate, and one supported by a minority of Tory MPs in a deeply divided governing party. An unelected government that has chosen this moment to use the power of the state to capture public wealth and divert it to the top ranks of the private sector – bankers, investors, developers and speculators. At the same time the poor are threatened with the loss of livelihoods if they do not single-handedly increase their own meagre earnings.


They are expected to do this as the economy is deliberately plunged into recession by a combination of inflationary rises in globalised energy and food prices; by a corresponding fall in real (inflation-adjusted) wages; and by the ratcheting up of interest rates by the Bank of England. Speaking of the Bank of England: that institution is now engaged in open conflict with the Liz Truss regime and Kwasi Kwarteng, the new finance minister – a conflict that can only end in economic upheaval. Yesterday the Bank published a statement on the decision of the members of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to raise the Bank rate of interest to 2.25% and admitted that consumer price inflation is not worsening, but is already falling – “from 10.1% in July to 9.9% in August. It also asserted dishonestly that “nominal wages have continued to rise.” Nominal wages are not real wages and economists at the Bank of England know that. Real Wages are falling. Bank of England economists know that too.

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“U.S. founders modeled the country on Rome, all the way down to the architecture of government buildings, the use of the eagle as the national bird, the use of Latin mottos, and the unfortunate use of the fasces—the axe surrounded by rods—as a symbol of state power.”

• The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire (Doug Casey)

Rome reached its peak of military power around the year 107, when Trajan completed the conquest of Dacia (the territory of modern Romania). With Dacia, the empire peaked in size, but I’d argue it was already past its peak by almost every other measure. The U.S. reached its peak relative to the world, and in some ways its absolute peak, as early as the 1950s. In 1950 this country produced 50% of the world’s GNP and 80% of its vehicles. Now it’s about 21% of world GNP and 5% of its vehicles. It owned two-thirds of the world’s gold reserves; now it holds one-fourth. It was, by a huge margin, the world’s biggest creditor, whereas now it’s the biggest debtor by a huge margin. The income of the average American was by far the highest in the world; today it ranks about eighth, and it’s slipping.

But it’s not just the U.S.—it’s Western civilization that’s in decline. In 1910 Europe controlled almost the whole world—politically, financially, and militarily. Now it’s becoming a Disneyland with real buildings and a petting zoo for the Chinese. It’s even further down the slippery slope than the U.S. Like America, Rome was founded by refugees—from Troy, at least in myth. Like America, it was ruled by kings in its early history. Later, Romans became self-governing, with several Assemblies and a Senate. Later still, power devolved to the executive, which was likely not an accident. U.S. founders modeled the country on Rome, all the way down to the architecture of government buildings, the use of the eagle as the national bird, the use of Latin mottos, and the unfortunate use of the fasces—the axe surrounded by rods—as a symbol of state power.

Publius, the pseudonymous author of The Federalist Papers, took his name from one of Rome’s first consuls. As it was in Rome, military prowess is at the center of the national identity of the U.S. When you adopt a model in earnest, you grow to resemble it. A considerable cottage industry has developed comparing ancient and modern times since Edward Gibbon published The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776—the same year as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the U.S. Declaration of Independence were written. I’m a big fan of all three, but D&F is not only a great history, it’s very elegant and readable literature. And it’s actually a laugh riot; Gibbon had a subtle wit.

There have been huge advances in our understanding of Rome since Gibbon’s time, driven by archeological discoveries. There were many things he just didn’t know, because he was as much a philologist as an historian, and he based his writing on what the ancients said about themselves. There was no real science of archeology when Gibbon wrote; little had been done even to correlate the surviving ancient texts with what was on the surviving monuments—even the well-known monuments—and on the coins. Not to mention scientists digging around in the provinces for what was left of Roman villas, battle sites, and that sort of thing. So Gibbon, like most historians, was to a degree a collector of hearsay.

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“Do not throw away your weapons now. Take them in your hands. Destroy the enemy.…People! Know! Moscow, Poland, the Hungarians, the Jews are your enemies. Destroy them!”

• Ukraine: The CIA’s 75-year-old Proxy (Sussman)

The MSM have constructed an undiluted narrative about “Putin’s War” that disguises America’s imperialist expansion into eastern Europe. It is utterly Orwellian in its effort to project onto Russia what the U.S. and its main imperial ally, the UK (which a British journalist deemed “America’s tugboat”), have been doing non-stop since 1945—and indeed for centuries. Looking back, the U.S. under Truman began the policy of turning enemies (Germany, Japan) into friends and friends (the important war-time alliance with the USSR) into enemies. The CIA, established in 1947, was the main clandestine instrument of this policy, working closely with the neo-Nazi Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to carry out acts to sabotage, divide and destabilize the Soviet state.

The OUN, in particular the faction led by the German ally Stepan Bandera and his second in command, Yaroslav Stetsko, OUN-B, was a violently anti-semitic, anti-communist, and anti-Russian organization, which collaborated with the Nazi occupation and actively participated in the slaughter of millions of Poles, Ukrainian Jews, and ethnically Russian and Ukrainian communists in the region. Nonetheless, The Washington Post treated Stetsko as a national hero, a “lonely patriot.” The OUN-German alliance in 1941 was backed by the leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches. The latter’s archbishop, Andrey Sheptytsky, penned a pastoral letter that declared: “We greet the victorious German Army as deliverer from the enemy. We render our obedient homage to the government which has been erected. We recognize Mr. Yaroslav Stetsko as Head of State … of the Ukraine.”

On the occasion of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the OUN put up posters in the western Ukrainian city of Lvov that read: “Do not throw away your weapons now. Take them in your hands. Destroy the enemy.…People! Know! Moscow, Poland, the Hungarians, the Jews are your enemies. Destroy them!…Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! Glory to the Leader! [Bandera]” Notably, this call for ethnic cleansing does not cite the Germans then occupying Ukraine, yet the fascist and neo-Nazi propagandists who are waging a war in the Donbas region today portray their forebearers as heroes for having defended Ukrainian nationalism from the Soviets and Germany. The Pentagon successfully pressed Congress to lift restrictions on training and providing military assistance to groups, such as the Azov Battalion, that are based on fascist or neo-Nazi ideology.

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What is to come. Sign of the times.

• Ford Forced To Park Thousands Of Unfinished Vehicles (RT)

Ford Motor Co. continues to be plagued by parts shortages, so much so that America’s largest automaker has reportedly resorted to parking thousands of unfinished pickups at an idle former NASCAR track in Kentucky. Footage posted online purports to show massive parking lots at the Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky, jammed with row after row of new Ford trucks. Automotive media outlets, such as The Drive, reported this week that the stashed vehicles are partially finished trucks that can’t be completed or shipped to customers because certain parts aren’t available. Ford apparently began hauling trucks to the speedway in late August. The Drive posted satellite photos of the facility from August 24 and September 19, showing formerly empty parking lots filled with vehicles.


Major automakers have struggled since last year with protracted shortages of computer chips. Ford’s parts shortfalls are widespread, ranging from windshield wiper motors to infotainment systems. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the company even has shortages of its iconic “blue oval” badges and the nameplates that identify vehicle models. Ford announced earlier this week that it had as many as 45,000 unfinished vehicles in inventory that wouldn’t be completed by the end of September because of parts shortages. The company added that its third-quarter costs would be about $1 billion higher than planned because of rampant inflation. [..] Customers have had to bide their time on long waiting lists for some Ford models, such as the F-150 Lightning electric pickup. Last month, Ford announced price increases of as much as $8,500 for the Lightning.

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There’s been a probe since Obama. Crickets.

• Republicans Push For Special Counsel In Hunter Biden Probe (CB)

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn and 32 other Senate Republicans are demanding special counsel powers for the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden. The lawmakers say they fear Attorney General Merrick Garland or others at the Justice Department may attempt to meddle in the probe to protect President Joe Biden and his son. “It is clear that Hunter Biden thrived off of a ‘pay to play’ culture of access to his father, then Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for financial compensation,” Cornyn and his colleagues wrote in the letter. “Given that the investigation involves the President’s son,” the letter from Cornyn says, “we believe it is important to provide U.S. Attorney Weiss with special counsel authorities and protections to allow him to investigate an appropriate scope of potentially criminal conduct, avoid the appearance of impropriety, and provide additional assurances to the American people that the Hunter Biden investigation is free from political influence.”

“There is no way of knowing the entire scope of the investigation, but evidence seems to be mounting that Hunter Biden committed numerous federal crimes, including, but not limited to, tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations,” the senators wrote in a letter. “Given the politicization of the DOJ under your watch and the importance of avoiding any appearance of impropriety, the undersigned request that you provide U.S. Attorney Weiss the full protections and authorities of a special counsel,” the letter said. “This is one important action that you can take that will go a long way to restoring faith in our governmental institutions.”

[..] In the letter, the Republicans said that Hunter must be investigated amid concerns that “he is continuing to profit off” his father’s name. “Hunter Biden’s connections throughout the Russian sphere of influence have now become especially relevant in the fast-moving and developing Russian war in Ukraine,” the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee said. “Hunter Biden’s dealings have not gone unnoticed, and a Department of Justice (DOJ) probe begun under the Obama Administration has expanded to include a wide variety of potential violations and crimes.

“According to the New York Times, Hunter Biden is currently under investigation by the DOJ for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and possible criminal tax evasion and money laundering,” it continued. “Given Hunter Biden’s foreign business relationships in Ukraine and Russia and the current international landscape, we are concerned about whether Hunter Biden continues to profit off his status as President Biden’s son as well as whether foreign adversaries may be attempting to exploit questionable business dealings. NARA may possess documents relevant to this investigation from then-Vice President Biden’s tenure,” they said.

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“Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

• WaPo Columnist Calls for the End of Impartiality and Balance (Turley)

In an age of rage, Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin has long been a standout in her attacks on Republicans and conservatives: “We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.” However, her recent column shows that she has made a clean break not only from Republicans but from reason. The writer (long cited by the Post as their “Republican columnist” for balance) has called for the media to abandon balance and impartiality. Rubin is demanding that the media just become overt advocates in refusing to report both sides in the myriad of political issues in this election.

In her column, Rubin rejects the “need for false balance” because the coverage can suggest that Republicans are “rational.” “The Kabuki dance in which Trump, his defenders and his supporters are treated as rational (clever even!) is what comes from a media establishment that refuses to discard its need for false balance that it has developed over the course of decades.” That balance was once called “journalism” but Rubin now calls it facilitating “disinformation.” Balanced reporting is now dangerous and makes the media “a megaphone for disinformation, upholding the pretense that there are two political parties with equally valid takes on reality.” Rubin’s attack on disinformation is ironic given her own past controversies in misrepresenting news, cases, and events.

For full disclosure, I clashed with Rubin over her personally attacking me for a theory that I did not agree with in a column that I did not write. I also challenged her on an equally bizarre column where she wrote about my impeachment testimony and later column misrepresenting the holding in an appellate case involving Trump. That false account was never corrected by the Washington Post. It appears that misrepresenting the holding of a major case is not being a “a megaphone for disinformation.” Rubin, however, is not alone in this call to abandon the foundational principle of impartiality in journalism. We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers.

This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy. Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that the journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

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April 2022.

• Covid Update: What Is The Truth? (NIH)

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies. We have witnessed a long list of unprecedented intrusions into medical practice, including attacks on medical experts, destruction of medical careers among doctors refusing to participate in killing their patients and a massive regimentation of health care, led by non-qualified individuals with enormous wealth, power and influence.

For the first time in American history a president, governors, mayors, hospital administrators and federal bureaucrats are determining medical treatments based not on accurate scientifically based or even experience based information, but rather to force the acceptance of special forms of care and “prevention”—including remdesivir, use of respirators and ultimately a series of essentially untested messenger RNA vaccines. For the first time in history medical treatment, protocols are not being formulated based on the experience of the physicians treating the largest number of patients successfully, but rather individuals and bureaucracies that have never treated a single patient—including Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, EcoHealth Alliance, the CDC, WHO, state public health officers and hospital administrators.

The media (TV, newspapers, magazines, etc), medical societies, state medical boards and the owners of social media have appointed themselves to be the sole source of information concerning this so-called “pandemic”. Websites have been removed, highly credentialed and experienced clinical doctors and scientific experts in the field of infectious diseases have been demonized, careers have been destroyed and all dissenting information has been labeled “misinformation” and “dangerous lies”, even when sourced from top experts in the fields of virology, infectious diseases, pulmonary critical care, and epidemiology. These blackouts of truth occur even when this information is backed by extensive scientific citations from some of the most qualified medical specialists in the world. Incredibly, even individuals, such as Dr. Michael Yeadon, a retired ex-Chief Scientist, and vice-president for the science division of Pfizer Pharmaceutical company in the UK, who charged the company with making an extremely dangerous vaccine, is ignored and demonized. Further, he, along with other highly qualified scientists have stated that no one should take this vaccine.

Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the most cited experts in his field, who has successfully treated over 2000 COVID patients by using a protocol of early treatment (which the so-called experts completely ignored), has been the victim of a particularly vicious assault by those benefiting financially from the vaccines. He has published his results in peer reviewed journals, reporting an 80% reduction in hospitalizations and a 75% reduction in deaths by using early treatment. Despite this, he is under an unrelenting series of attacks by the information controllers, none of which have treated a single patient.

Neither Anthony Fauci, the CDC, WHO nor any medical governmental establishment has ever offered any early treatment other than Tylenol, hydration and call an ambulance once you have difficulty breathing. This is unprecedented in the entire history of medical care as early treatment of infections is critical to saving lives and preventing severe complications. Not only have these medical organizations and federal lapdogs not even suggested early treatment, they attacked anyone who attempted to initiate such treatment with all the weapons at their disposal—loss of license, removal of hospital privileges, shaming, destruction of reputations and even arrest.

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George Webb

 

 

 

 

Guano/Nitrogen/Haber

 

 

Moto dog

 

 


Green vine snake

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 27 2022

Aug 272022
 
 August 27, 2022  Posted by at 8:09 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  76 Responses »


Felix Vallotton Verdun 1917

 

• An Ill Wind (Jim Kunstler)
• UK Facing ‘National Disaster’ – London Mayor (RT)
• Power Costs In Germany Hit Historic Highs (RT)
• Ruling German Party Split On Ukraine (RT)
• EU Nation Bulgaria Wants To Resume Buying Russian Gas (RT)
• It’s Time To Worry About Greece Again (R.)
• Zaporizhzhia: World Narrowly Avoided Radiation Accident – Zelensky (BBC)
• Only One In Three UN Members Back Ukraine’s New Anti-Russia Resolution (RT)
• Americans To Get Medals For Ukraine (RT)
• Not Even Pope Francis Is Safe From Kiev’s Wrath (Robert Bridge)
• Moderna Sues Pfizer And BioNTech Over Coronavirus Vaccine (G.)
• WaPo And WSJ Slam Biden Student Loan Handout (ZH)
• Student Loan Cancellation Latest In Long Line Of Biden Legal Overreaches (JTN)
• Stakeholder Interests Within FBI Affidavit Justifying Raid on Trump (CTH)
• Dramatic Timeline of Political Corruption Within the FBI (CTH)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putin 2014

 

 

Zhirinovsky
https://twitter.com/i/status/1562771184051437569

 

 

 

 

Vast majority of young Americans remain unvaccinated

 

 

 

 

“The regime that has turned our world inside out in its Satanic pursuit of comfort and power will be stripped naked and judged..”

• An Ill Wind (Jim Kunstler)

We’ve heard ad nauseam that the Washington DC insiders, the denizens of that demi-mythic Deep State in the wealthiest metro area of all the land, look down on the rest of America. Why is that? I’ll tell you. Because the DC confederacy of grifters has gotten fat off your suffering as they have systematically wrecked and looted that rest of America, the sinking middle-class. They are living in fabulous comfort off your bamboozlement and ruin. Their contempt for you grows on your tragic breakdown like fungus on a once-mighty fallen tree. They prevailed in this world and you didn’t. You chumps are in Palookaville on your way to the bone orchard, and therefore they are better than you, ha ha ha.

There is another side of this life, in case all that has got you demoralized. That is the side where human beings say things that comport with reality, where people mean what they say and use language as if it evolved to describe things and doings with some exactitude — as in this is this and that is that… and not the inverse or opposite. That is the side of life where pretending is not the highest-and-best use of human intelligence. I know, these days it’s hard to imagine that side of life, but it’s actually still there, waiting to be reanimated. The regime that has turned our world inside out in its Satanic pursuit of comfort and power will be stripped naked and judged, if not by official judges, then by an unstoppable consensus.

The sore-beset public will take an inventory of what has been lost and begin reconstructing a scaffold of shared life that rewards fidelity to the way things actually work. It will be a rough passage out of what amounts to a hostage crisis. There will be friction and heat. You will not be comfortable, but you will be dauntless. You will certainly not have nothing or be happy about that. You will have, at least, a restored memory of what it was like to strive honorably for a life worth living. We’re in the crucible of all that just now, where everything is white hot. Do not bend or melt. Soldier through. Be men and be women (there is truly nothing in-between, and do not fall for faithless inducements to doubt that). You are brothers and sisters in an enterprise worth saving and you have a history worth defending. Believe it.

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“..there is “no actual cap” on the maximum that can be paid, and that the figure is just the cap for “those on average use.”

• UK Facing ‘National Disaster’ – London Mayor (RT)

The UK is facing a “national disaster” if the government fails to act immediately to solve the energy crisis, London Mayor Sadiq Khan warned after energy regulator Ofgem announced that the price cap on the average energy bill would increase to £3,549 ($2,323) from October. Khan made the comments on Friday after Ofgem announced the 80% hike in the price cap, as struggling British households face what the mayor said would be a “bleak winter.” The new price cap is almost triple what it was last October when it was raised to £1,277 ($1,505). “With energy prices soaring and more families struggling to make ends meet, this government needs to step up and take urgent action now,”Khan said, arguing that the government has “consistently failed” to intervene and ministers “must act now to prevent this cost of living crisis becoming a national disaster.”


Brits “desperately need to know” what Westminster’s plan of action is, Khan added. Khan called for an immediate bill freeze and the introduction of a ‘Lifeline Tariff’ to ensure the most vulnerable in society receive a certain amount of free energy. The mayor also pointed out on Twitter that there is “no actual cap” on the maximum that can be paid, and that the figure is just the cap for “those on average use.” Consumer champion Martin Lewis echoed that concern, saying nothing is stopping some households from paying £10,000 ($11,821) a year. Lewis also said a movement is growing for Brits to refuse to pay energy bills, telling Good Morning Britain on Friday that if the government does not implement emergency measures, the ‘Don’t Pay’ movement “are going to become a louder voice in this country.”

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Germany is set to drag down the entire EU with it.

• Power Costs In Germany Hit Historic Highs (RT)

German benchmark power prices for next year soared above €800 per megawatt hour on Friday, nearly 10 times higher than the same period last year, Bloomberg reports. Prices gained as much as 7.6% on Friday to reach €805.15 per megawatt hour on the European Energy Exchange, up 39% this week. Costs have been smashing records on an almost daily basis as the winter heating period approaches. The rally is being driven by growing concerns over Russian natural gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.


Berlin previously required gas operators to fill underground storage facilities while adhering to a strict schedule, to ensure the country has enough fuel to last the winter. The plan states that storage must be 85% full by October 1, and 95% full by November 1. Experts doubt the goal is achievable. The spike in energy costs is fueling inflation and hurting households and businesses across Europe. European countries have started introducing drastic measures to limit energy use, such as banning outside lighting for buildings and lowering indoor heating temperatures.

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“..a “ceasefire as soon as possible as a basis for comprehensive peace negotiations.”

• Ruling German Party Split On Ukraine (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing dissent within his own party ranks from those who want Berlin to stop providing Kiev with weapons, Der Spiegel has claimed. The outlet suggests the left wing of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has also called on Scholz to engage in dialogue with Russia. In its article published on Friday, Der Spiegel said the chancellor’s decision to beef up the German military, sever ties with Russia, and ship heavy weaponry to Ukraine earlier this year was hard to swallow for many in a political party that had for decades stood for disarmament and a policy of detente. According to the outlet, a group of SPD members representing the party’s left wing have penned a letter to Scholz, titled “The weapons must fall silent!”

In it, they advocate a diplomatic offensive as a means of ending the Ukraine conflict. Among the signatories are multiple members of the Bundestag and the European Parliament, as well as prominent party figures from several German regions, the article claims. “A continuation of the war will only bring more deaths and destruction,” the appeal seen by Der Spiegel reportedly says. The SPD members are also quoted as calling for a “ceasefire as soon as possible as a basis for comprehensive peace negotiations.” They allegedly want Berlin to engage countries that could act as mediators, with China mentioned as a good candidate for that role.

The letter reportedly goes on to argue that, while a fundamental improvement in relations between Germany and Russia would only be possible in a “post-Putin era,” Berlin has to establish a “modus vivendi” for the time being that would help to prevent “further escalation of the war.” The German government is also urged to acknowledge “realities,” however unpleasant they may be, the article claimed. The ‘peace camp’ within the SPD also warned Scholz of the risk of a nuclear conflict breaking out, and cautioned him against crossing the “red line” that would mean Germany’s direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict, the outlet says. The lawmakers allegedly argued that attempts to establish a no-fly zone over the Eastern European country, as well as the shipment of battle tanks or fighter jets, could trigger such an apocalyptic scenario.

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Not everyone wants to be dragged down.

• EU Nation Bulgaria Wants To Resume Buying Russian Gas (RT)

The Bulgarian government is considering holding talks with energy giant Gazprom on resuming Russian natural gas imports, Energy Minister Rosen Hristov told Nova TV on Friday. “There are still no active talks with Gazprom… but we have given an indication that we want to start negotiations, or rather to continue them to clarify some controversial terms of the contract. We simply sent information that we were ready to negotiate and asked them to resume contact,” he said, specifying that Sofia expects a response from the Russian supplier on Friday, or Monday next week at the latest. The minister stressed: “We are only talking about the old contract; we will not re-sign or negotiate a new contract.”


According to Hristov, Sofia is seeking to extend the deadline to supply the remaining volumes of gas under the contract until 2023. In April, Bulgaria rejected the ruble-for-gas payment method introduced by Russia in response to Western sanctions. Under the new regulation, buyers from countries that imposed restrictions on Moscow are obliged to pay for Russian natural gas in rubles. Sofia’s refusal to accept the new terms prompted Gazprom Export to halt fuel supplies to its Bulgarian partner, Bulgargaz.

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Ruling party uses secret service to spy on opponents. Sound familiar?

• It’s Time To Worry About Greece Again (R.)

It is only a few years since the Grexit horror movie ended. But sadly Greece’s creditors, investors and allies need to start worrying about the country again. A bugging scandal threatens Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government and prolonged political instability. This is not a re-run of the crisis that threatened to eject Greece from the euro. But the state’s high deficit and debt – which is 189% of GDP – are a cause for concern at a time of soaring energy prices and rising interest rates. Earlier this month the leader of Pasok, one of Greece’s opposition parties, accused the country’s intelligence service of bugging his phone. There had also been an unsuccessful attempt from an unknown source to infect his phone with spyware, called Predator.

Mitsotakis, leader of the centre-right New Democracy party, said he was unaware of the phone tapping and wouldn’t have approved it if he had known read more . He fired the head of the intelligence service. The government’s general secretary, to whom the intelligence service reported and who is Mitsotakis’ nephew, also quit. The government denies purchasing or using Predator. Nevertheless, the Greek parliament has reconvened to debate the issue today. sAlthough Mitsotakis has a solid majority, he has to call an election at the latest by August 2023. This will be fought under proportional representation, with the result that no party will get an overall majority. There will then be a second election, under a new law, which will give the leading party a large number of bonus members of parliament.

Opinion polls previously suggested Mitsotakis would win a majority in this second election – or come close to doing so. But following the eruption of the bugging scandal, this no longer seems likely. What is more, it will be hard for him to form a coalition, as his obvious partner was Pasok, the centre-left party whose leader’s phone was tapped. It will be extremely reluctant to do a deal with Mitsotakis. However, it will also be hard for Greece’s largest opposition party, the left-wing Syriza, to form a coalition. Though it would try to cut a deal with Pasok, the two groups probably wouldn’t have a majority. They might only be able to get one via a fanciful coalition including the communists and the far-right.

There are other possibilities. New Democracy might replace Mitsotakis with a leader more appealing to Pasok. Another is that Greek parties might form a grand coalition, led by a technocrat. But none of the scenarios looks terribly stable. Meanwhile, many questions about the bugging scandal remain unanswered. If there are further damaging revelations, Mitsotakis may struggle to hang on until the election.

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The BBC knows it’s Ukraine shelling the plant.

• Zaporizhzhia: World Narrowly Avoided Radiation Accident – Zelensky (BBC)

Europe faced the prospect of a radiation disaster on Thursday when a Russian-occupied nuclear plant was disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid, President Volodomyr Zelensky has said.It was only due to back-up electricity kicking in that the Zaporizhzhia plant was able to operate safely, he added.Fires had earlier damaged overhead power lines, cutting the plant off. There is growing concern over fighting near the complex, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe.”If the diesel generators hadn’t turned on, if the automation and our staff of the plant had not reacted after the blackout, then we would already be forced to overcome the consequences of the radiation accident,” President Zelensky warned on Thursday night.


The damage was caused by fires which Ukraine’s state nuclear agency said had interfered with power lines connecting the plant on Thursday, temporarily cutting Zaporizhzhia off from the national grid for the first time in its history. “As a result, the station’s two working power units were disconnected from the network,” Kyiv officials said. On Friday afternoon, the state nuclear company said the plant had been reconnected to the electricity grid, with one of its six reactors providing power. Satellite images taken on Wednesday showed an extensive fire burning in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear complex. President Zelensky blamed the damage on Russian shelling, and in his nightly address accused Moscow of putting Ukraine and Europe “one step away” from disaster. But local Russian-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky blamed the Ukrainian military for the strikes, accusing them of causing power outages to the region as a result.

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Meanwhile, in the real world …

• Only One In Three UN Members Back Ukraine’s New Anti-Russia Resolution (RT)

Ukraine’s latest proposal to condemn Russia has attracted the backing of just 58 out of 193 UN member states, a far cry from the number that symbolically supported Kiev in the General Assembly in March. Kiev’s envoy to the UN Sergey Kislitsa heralded the proposed resolution on Wednesday, following the Security Council meetingconvened on Ukraine’s independence day. The session featured a video address by President Vladimir Zelensky, for which the council had to override protocol requiring in-person appearances, and a series of statements by Western governments denouncing Russia.


Moscow’s envoy Vassily Nebenzia provided the counterpoint by introducing evidence of Ukrainian atrocities into the record and even naming Kiev’s western backers as accomplices in specific instances. Kislitsa’s resolution also fell short of the support Kiev had back in March, right after the start of the Russian military operation. At the March 2 General Assembly session,141 member countries – or 73% of the UN – voted for a nonbinding resolution to condemn Moscow. This week, however, that support stood at 30%, with no African, Persian Gulf or BRICS countries on board – and only two Latin American governments, Colombia and Guatemala, standing with Ukraine.

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It’s no longer a proxy war.

• Americans To Get Medals For Ukraine (RT)

The US government intends to officially name its military mission to aid Kiev and appoint a general to command it, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Biden administration officials. This would formalize the operation that predates the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine and allow the Pentagon to award ribbons, medals, and special pay to its participants. Giving the operation a name is “significant bureaucratically,” the Journal explained, as it “typically entails long-term, dedicated funding and the possibility of special pay, ribbons and awards for service members participating in the effort.” The US has previously named its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The original intervention in Afghanistan was dubbed “Enduring Freedom,”replaced by the nation-building “Freedom’s Sentinel” in 2015.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was called “Iraqi Freedom,” while the 2014 redeployment to Iraq and Syria to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists was designated “Inherent Resolve.” A two-star or three-star general will be appointed to command the effort, in what the Journal described as “a shift from the largely ad hoc effort to to provide training and assistance to the Ukrainians for years.” While the US has sent Ukraine almost $11 billion worth of weapons and ammunition since February, Washington and its NATO allies have provided Kiev with military aid since the 2014 coup that put a US-backed government in power and set off the civil war in Donbass. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko admitted in June that his signature on the Minsk armistice was intended to buy Kiev time to build up a powerful military.

Aleksey Danilov, who currently chairs Ukraine’s National Security Council, revealed on Tuesday that Kiev had been “preparing for the war since December 2019.” In April, the White House appointed retired US Army General Terry Wolff as coordinator for military assistance to Ukraine. Wolff, a veteran Pentagon policy planner, had retired in February 2014 as director of strategic plans and policy (J-5) for the Joint Staff. He was previously in charge of US efforts to arm and train militants in Syria.

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“..it was telling how the Pope’s use of the word “innocent” when applied to Darya Dugina triggered such a powerful response from someone who calls himself a diplomat.”

• Not Even Pope Francis Is Safe From Kiev’s Wrath (Robert Bridge)

After mentioning the death of Darya Dugina, a young Russian journalist and political activist, Pope Francis has faced the anger of Kiev, which apparently thinks it has the monopoly on “innocence.” For the past six months, Kiev has lashed out at various government leaders and international organizations, like Amnesty International, for example, which reported on Ukraine’s violations of international law on the battlefield. So it was just a matter of time before the Catholic Church got an earful, too. And that’s what happened this week when Pope Francis, addressing a congregation in the Vatican, mentionegd the death of Darya Dugina, whose life was cut tragically short by a car bombing. But before uttering the name of the deceased Russian woman, the Pope acknowledged the innocent victims on both sides of the conflict.

“Whether they are Ukrainians or Russians … I think of so much cruelty, of the many innocents who are paying for the madness, the madness of all sides because war is madness,” Pope Francis told his flock. “I think of the poor girl (Darya Dugina) who was blown up by a bomb under her car seat in Moscow. The innocent pay for the war.” That seems to be a fair assessment of the horrors of warfare that few could find fault with. While government leaders are ultimately responsible for leading their people into the “madness of war,” it is the “innocent” people – from soldiers on the frontlines to civilians back home – who suffer the brunt of the consequences. Yet, like a true politician, Ukraine’s Vatican ambassador Andrey Yurash politicized the Pope’s words, saying it was impossible to call Dugina “innocent” when she – together with her prominent father, the political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin – advocated on behalf of Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine.

There are several problems with Yurash’s peculiar brand of moralizing, the first one being that he, much like the Western world in general, conveniently fast-forwarded past eight years of bloodshed in Donbass that has caused millions of people – not just “political ideologues” – to support Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine in the first place. I’m not sure what Mr. Yurash was tweeting about in 2014, but somehow I doubt it had anything to do with the unprovoked attacks on Russian speakers in Donbass that have killed thousands. Second, it was telling how the Pope’s use of the word “innocent” when applied to Darya Dugina triggered such a powerful response from someone who calls himself a diplomat. What’s more, in his tweet, Yurash went on to apparently insinuate that it was the Russians themselves that killed her in order to make her a martyr.

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Sales are down?

• Moderna Sues Pfizer And BioNTech Over Coronavirus Vaccine (G.)

Moderna is suing its US pharmaceutical rival Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States, alleging they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic. The lawsuit, which seeks undetermined monetary damages, was being filed in US district court in Massachusetts and the regional court of Düsseldorf in Germany, Moderna said in a news release on Friday. “We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic,” Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said in the statement.

Moderna Inc, on its own, and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech were two of the first groups to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. Just a decade old as a company, Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had been an innovator in the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology that enabled the unprecedented speed in developing the Covid-19 vaccine after the coronavirus pandemic began in late 2019 and spread around the world. An approval process that previously took years was completed in months, thanks largely to the breakthrough in mRNA vaccines, which teach human cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response.

[..] Moderna alleges Pfizer/BioNTech, without permission, copied mRNA technology that Moderna had patented between 2010 and 2016, well before deadly Covid-19 emerged in 2019 in China and exploded into global consciousness in early 2020. Early in the pandemic, Moderna said it would not enforce its Covid-19 patents to help others develop their own vaccines, particularly for low- and middle-income countries. But in March 2022 Moderna said it expected companies such as Pfizer and BioNTech to respect its intellectual property rights. It said it would not seek damages for any activity before 8 March 2022.

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“..Student-loan debt won’t appear to swell even as it does. What a fabulous accounting trick.”

• WaPo And WSJ Slam Biden Student Loan Handout (ZH)

After the Biden administration announced its ham-fisted scheme to eliminate $10,000 in student loans for borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal editorial boards independently wrote about what a stupid idea it is. “This is easily the worst domestic decision of his Presidency and makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college,” writes the Journal editorial board. “Democrats said these plans would reduce defaults. They haven’t. Federal student debt has ballooned because many borrowers don’t make enough to cover interest and principal payments, so their balances expand. Student debt has nearly doubled since 2011 to $1.6 trillion, though the number of borrowers has increased by only 18%.

Now Mr. Biden is cutting undergrad payments to a mere 5% of discretionary income. The government will also cover unpaid monthly interest for borrowers so their balances won’t grow even if they aren’t paying a penny. This will mask the cost to taxpayers of the Administration’s rolling loan write-off. Student-loan debt won’t appear to swell even as it does. What a fabulous accounting trick.” -WSJ The Post, meanwhile, said that Biden “Has generally embraced sensible reforms over flashy gimmicks. But his Wednesday student loan announcement did just the opposite,” adding that the plan to forgive both the $10K and $20K levels are “ill-conceived and misdirected.”

“The unemployment rate for people with bachelor’s degrees and higher is just 2 percent. It’s hard to make the case that college graduates are still facing an unprecedented crisis. The loan-forgiveness decision is even worse. Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college, to subsidize the education debt of people with valuable degrees. Mr. Biden’s student loan decision will not do enough to help the most vulnerable Americans. It will, however, provide a windfall for those who don’t need it — with American taxpayers footing the bill.” -WaPo. Ouch!

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“..Biden “is using COVID emergency powers to allow people not to repay their loans,” he asked, “[Does] that make any sense?”

• Student Loan Cancellation Latest In Long Line Of Biden Legal Overreaches (JTN)

Since President Biden entered office, federal courts across the country have repeatedly struck down administration policies as unconstitutional. According to critics, there may soon be another addition to this long and growing list: Biden’s announcement Wednesday that he will unilaterally cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 per year and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. The Justice Department released a legal opinion stating the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act gives the education secretary the “authority to reduce or eliminate the obligation to repay the principal balance of federal student loan debt.” The opinion also found the debt could be forgiven on a “class-wide” basis in response to COVID-19.

Advocates of student loan forgiveness have made similar arguments, pointing to language in the Higher Education Act of 1965 that empowers the education secretary to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption” to argue Congress isn’t needed to cancel student loan debt on a large scale. However, critics counter that the language refers just to settling loans on a case-by-case basis and doesn’t give the executive branch the power to implement large-scale student loan cancellation. These critics note all executive branch spending must first be appropriated by Congress and contend canceling student debt for millions of Americans via executive action violates the separation of powers fundamental to the Constitution.

In January 2021, when former President Trump was still in office, the Department of Education issued a legal memo saying the education secretary “does not have the statutory authority to cancel, compromise, discharge, or forgive, on a blanket or mass basis, principal balances of student loans, and/or to materially modify the repayment amounts or terms thereof.” The memo has been taken down from the department’s website since Biden entered the White House. None other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a Biden ally, told reporters last year that Biden didn’t have the power to cancel student debt. “That has to be an act of Congress … the president can’t do it,” said Pelosi. “That’s not even a discussion.”

Biden himself has previously expressed reluctance about using executive authority to enact widespread student loan forgiveness, saying in December 2020: “I think that’s pretty questionable. I’m unsure of that. I’d be unlikely to do that.” Critics of Biden’s announcement are expected to launch legal challenges to stop it from being implemented. Arguing that “the president does not have the authority to do this,” economist Steve Moore told the “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show, “I think that Supreme Court is going to rule against Biden.” Noting that Biden “is using COVID emergency powers to allow people not to repay their loans,” he asked, “[Does] that make any sense?

Mike Davis

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“..the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.”

• Stakeholder Interests Within FBI Affidavit Justifying Raid on Trump (CTH)

Chris Steele, Igor Danchenko and Rodney Joffe were also interviewed by the FBI. Those 302’s were never released. Presumably John Durham has stakeholder equity in that part of the Trump-Russia hoax, but the documentary evidence prior to January 20, 2021, that exists outside the special counsel could also be records at Mar-a-Lago. Then we get to the big stuff…. The records and evidence in unredacted and declassified state, that would drive the DOJ-NSD to claim vital national security interests. The NSA compliance officer notified NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers of unauthorized use of the NSA database by FBI contractors searching U.S. citizens during the 2015/2016 presidential primary. That 2016 notification is a classified record.

The response from Mike Rogers, and the subsequent documentary evidence of what names were being searched is again a classified record. The audit logs showing who was doing the searches (which contractors, which agencies and from what offices), as noted by Director Rogers, was preserved. That is another big-time classified record. In addition, we would have Admiral Rogers writing a mandatory oversight notification to the FISA court detailing what happened. That’s a big and comprehensive classified record, likely contained in the documents in Mar-a-Lago… and then the goldmine, the fully unredacted 99-page FISA court opinion detailing the substance of the NSA compromise by FBI officials and contractors, including the names, frequency and dates of the illegal surveillance. That is a major classified document the Deepest Deep State would want to keep hidden.

These are the types of documents within what former ODNI John Ratcliffe called “thousands of pages that were declassified by President Trump,” and given to both John Durham and Main Justice with an expectation of public release when the Durham special counsel probe concluded. In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him. However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting. These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveals the background of how the DC surveillance state exists. THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.

Read more …

Strong video.

• Dramatic Timeline of Political Corruption Within the FBI (CTH)

BACKGROUND on FBI – As we discovered in January of this year, the FBI was fully aware of the terrorist who was planning to shoot the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and yet they did nothing. The FBI knowledge of the shooter, Malik Faisal Akram, who was known as Faisal Akram was confirmed by The Daily Mail. Akram ranted, prior to his travel to the U.S, that he wished he had died in the 9/11 terror attacks. He was a regular visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly a member of the Tablighi Jamaat group set up to ‘purify’ Islam. To say the U.S. intelligence system knew Faisal Akram would be an understatement. The FBI was also fully aware of the Boston Marathon bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, before they executed their plot. The FBI took no action.

The FBI knew about the San Bernardino terrorists, specifically Tashfeen Malik, and were monitoring her phone calls and communications before her and Syed Farook executed their attack killing 14 people and leaving 22 others seriously injured. The FBI took no action. The FBI knew Colorado grocery store shooter Ahmad Alissa before he executed his attack. The FBI took no action. The FBI knew in advance of the Pulse Nightclub shooter (Omar Mateen) and were tipped off by the local sheriff. The FBI knew in advance of the San Bernardino Terrorists (Tashfeen Malik). The FBI knew in advance of the Boston Marathon Bombers (the Tsarnaev brothers) tipped off by Russians. The FBI knew in advance of the Parkland High School shooter (Nikolas Cruz). The FBI knew in advance of the Fort Hood shooter (Nidal Hasan), and the FBI knew in advance of Colorado grocery store shooter Ahmad al-Aliwi Alissa. The FBI took no action.

The case of the first recorded ISIS attack on U.S. soil was in Garland, Texas in 2015. The FBI not only knew the shooters (Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi) in advance, BUT the FBI ALSO took the shooters to the venue and were standing only a few yards away when Simpson and Soofi opened fire. Yes, you read that correctly – the FBI took the terrorists to the event and then watched it unfold. “An FBI trainer suggested in an interview with “60 Minutes” that, had the attack been bigger, the agency’s numerous ties to the shooter would have led to a congressional investigation.”

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Tucker 4-sigma
https://twitter.com/i/status/1563030107572568068

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steller’s sea eagle

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 21 2022

Aug 212022
 
 August 21, 2022  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Giambologna Colossus of the Apennines 1579-80 (35ft tall)

 

• Car Blast Kills Daughter Of Russian Philosopher Dugin (RT)
• Modern Empires Keep Taking What They Want From ‘Lesser’ Powers (Kovalik)
• Russian Soldiers In Ukraine Hospitalized With Severe Chemical Poisoning (RT)
• Two Lives: Victoria and Victorine (Batiushka)
• Russia Continues To Stockpile Forex Reserves (RT)
• UN Recruited Over 100,000 Digital First Responders to Push COVID Narrative (SN)
• Houston, We Have a Problem – Part 1 of 3 (Ethical Skeptic)
• Insufficient Vitamin D Linked To Fourfold Increase In Covid-19 Mortality (IT)
• China Backs African Union Bid To Join The Group of 20 (SCMP)
• Chinese Ambassador Outlines BRICS Vision (RT)
• Millions Could Be Left Without Heat And Food In Winter, London Mayor Warns (RT)
• Just How Bad Could Things Get This Winter? (RT)
• Swiss Revolt Warning Issued (RT)
• Amish Farmer Fighting US Government For Right To Sell His All-natural Food (RN)
• Dutch Farmers Confront Billionaire ‘Green’ Elite’s Food System Reset Plan (GZ)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biden’s bribe tapes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too early to say if the father was the intended target. But Putin can’t let cars be blown up near Moscow. He has to act.

• Car Blast Kills Daughter Of Russian Philosopher Dugin (RT)

A powerful explosion ripped apart an SUV near Moscow on Saturday night, instantly killing its driver. According to preliminary reports, the victim was identified as Darya Dugina, the daughter of a veteran Russian political commentator Alexander Dugin, who is often painted in the West as one of the Kremlin’s “ideological masterminds.” The incident took place on a highway some 20 kilometers west of Moscow around 21:35 local time, with witnesses saying that the blast rocked the vehicle right in the middle of the road, scattering debris all around. The crippled car, fully engulfed in flames, then crashed into a fence, according to photos and videos from the scene. Emergency services said one person was inside the car and was instantly killed by the blast and crash – a female whose body was reportedly recovered burned beyond recognition.

Authorities have yet to officially confirm the identity of the victim, but multiple Russian Telegram channels and media sources reported that the victim was 30-year-old Darya Dugina (Platonova). Her father, Alexander Dugin, was spotted at the scene soon after the incident, visibly shocked, according to several videos circulating on social media. Preliminary reports suggested that a home-made explosive device might have been involved, but investigators have yet to confirm the cause of the blast, or any possible motive in case of a foul play. Earlier on Saturday evening, Aleksandr Dugin was giving a lecture on “Tradition and History”at a traditional family festival in the Moscow region, while his daughter attended the event as a guest. Some unconfirmed reports suggested that Dugin initially planned to leave the festival alongside his daughter, but later decided to take a separate car, while Darya took his Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.

Darya Dugina was a political commentator and daughter of Professor Aleksandr Dugin – a veteran Russian philosopher known for his staunch anti-Western and “neo-Eurasian” views. Western media repeatedly painted Dugin as one of the driving forces behind President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy over the past decade. Just in recent months, CBS dubbed him “the far-right theorist behind Putin’s plan,” while the Washington Post called him a “far-right mystical writer who helped shape Putin’s view of Russia.” n Russia, however, the supposed shadowy puppet master is largely considered to be a relatively marginal figure with some of his views deemed controversial even in nationalist circles. While he has served as an adviser to several politicians, Dugin never enjoyed official endorsement from the Kremlin.

Dugina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1561151146580152320

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“A child asks his parent, “Why are there pyramids in Egypt?” The parent answers, “Because they were too big to take to Britain.“

• Modern Empires Keep Taking What They Want From ‘Lesser’ Powers (Kovalik)

There is an old joke which still has resonance. A child asks his parent, “Why are there pyramids in Egypt?” The parent answers, “Because they were too big to take to Britain.” Of course, many a true word is spoken in jest. Indeed, there is an apocryphal story that back in the day when Vladimir Lenin was in exile in London, he would enjoy taking friends to the British Museum and explaining to them how and from what far-flung lands all the antiquities there were stolen. One might have thought that these days of colonial plunder had ended, but one would be very wrong. Current examples abound. A notable one is, of course, the freezing by the US of $7 billion from the Afghanistan treasury – monies the US continues to hold even as it watches Afghans begin to die from starvation.

Apparently, the US believes that, after laying waste to Afghanistan through 20 years of war and, even before that by supporting the mujahideen terrorists, it is entitled to some compensation. This upside-down type of reasoning abounds in the minds of those in the West who simply believe they can take whatever they wish. Similarly, the US is now plundering Syria – another country utterly devastated in no small part by Washington-backed militants in a campaign to overthrow the elected president – of most of its oil, even as Syria suffers from severe energy blackouts. Thus, according to the Syrian Oil Ministry, “US occupation forces and their mercenaries,” referring to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), “steal up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83 percent of Syria’s daily oil production.

According to the ministry’s data, the Syrian oil sector has incurred losses of “about $105 billion since the beginning of the war until the middle of this year” as a result of the US oil theft campaign. Additionally, the statement added that alongside the financial losses incurred by the oil sector were “losses of life, including 235 martyrs, 46 injured and 112 kidnapped.” One of the biggest heists the US has carried out is against Russia. After the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the US seized an incredible $300 billion of Russian treasury funds which were deposited abroad. This was done, of course, without any due process, and to the great detriment of the Russian people – and with barely a critical word from Western pundits.

The US treatment of Venezuela abounds with other examples. As I write these words, the US is maneuvering to seize a commercial 747 airliner from Venezuela on the grounds that it once belonged to an Iranian airline which had some connection to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (which Washington has designated as terrorists) – which might sound like a tenuous justification, but the US really needs no reason. And this is simply the tip of the iceberg. The US has already seized Venezuela’s biggest single source of revenue – its US-based oil company CITGO – and is now in the process of selling off this company in pieces, even as Washington lifts restrictions on Venezuelan oil to shore up its own economy. The UK, meanwhile, has decided to keep over $1 billion in gold which Venezuela naively deposited in the Bank of England for safe-keeping. To add insult to injury, the US continues to criticize Venezuela for the hardships its people endure as a direct consequence of this plunder.

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Botulinum toxin.

• Russian Soldiers In Ukraine Hospitalized With Severe Chemical Poisoning (RT)

Several Russian soldiers involved in the military operation in Ukraine have been hospitalized with severe chemical poisoning, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. Traces of Botulinum toxin Type B, which is an “organic poison of artificial origin,” have been discovered in samples taken from the servicemen, the ministry said, accusing Kiev of “chemical terrorism.” The Russian troops were “hospitalized with signs of severe poisoning” after being stationed near the village of Vasilyevka in Zaporozhye Region on July 31, the statement said. “The Zelensky regime has authorized terrorist attacks with the use of toxic substances against Russian personnel and civilians” following a string of military defeats in Donbass and other areas, the ministry insisted.


Moscow plans to send laboratory tests from the soldiers to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Botulinum toxin, often called the “miracle poison,” is one of the most toxic biological substances known to science. Produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, it blocks the release of the acetylcholine neurotransmitter, causing muscle paralysis. Botulinum toxin Type A has been used in medicine in small doses in recent decades, especially to treat disorders characterized by overactive muscle movement. It’s also well known in cosmetology under its shortened name, Botox. However, Botulinum toxin poses a major threat as a bioweapon due its ease of production and distribution, and the high fatality rate resulting from poisoning. Recovery is only possible after a lengthy period of intensive care.

Donbass residents

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“How does she sleep at night?”

• Two Lives: Victoria and Victorine (Batiushka)

Victoria Jane Nuland was born in 1961 to Sherwin Nudelman, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, and a British-born mother, Rhona Goulston. Already in his teens Nudelman had changed his name to Nuland in order to carve out a career. With the British-named Victoria, an Anglo-Zionist was clearly in the making. Indeed, she duly studied at an elite private boarding school in Connecticut, whose alumni include many US politicians. Then she went to Brown University, where she studied Russian literature, political science and history. She married Robert Kagan, the future leading Jewish neocon. Her worldview relects exactly the folly of the US since 1990 under the influence of the neo-imperialist neocons and Blairite-Clintonian ‘liberal interventionists’.

This has resulted in mass poverty in the USA, as well as 9/11, and millions of deaths in wars and tensions outside the US with the Islamic world, Iran, Russia, China and anyone else that resists US imperialism. From 2003 to 2005, during the US rape of defenceless Iraq and the theft of its oil and gas, Mrs Kagan was a foreign policy advisor to the notorious Cheney. She must have many deaths on her conscience from that particular mess. The Iraq catastrophe led to terrorism and counterterrorism and disastrous new wars in Libya and Syria. Meanwhile, her husband was demanding an ever more warlike foreign policy against the background of US fears of the coming multipolar world, a world which it would no longer be able to dominate.

So Mrs Kagan, who yearned for permanent NATO expansion and the encirclement of Russia, was deeply involved in the US ‘regime-change’, that is, the plot to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically-elected government by violence in 2014. This led to America’s responsibility for the ensuing civil war that had killed at least 14,000 people, women and children among them, even before 24 February 2022 and had left Ukraine the poorest country in Europe. Her $5 billion coup in 2014 in the wretched Ukraine, a strategic candidate for NATO on Russia’s border, was implemented through Oleh Tyahnybok’s neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and the new Right Sector militia. We do not forget that it was Tyanhnybok who had delivered a speech praising Ukrainians for fighting Jews and ‘other scum’ during World War II.

In February 2014 their protests in Kyiv’s Maidan Square turned into running battles led by neo-Nazis and extreme right-wing forces that the US had financed and orchestrated. A mob led by the Right Sector militia marched on Parliament and the President and others fled for their lives. Facing the possible loss of its naval base in Sevastopol in the Crimea, Russia accepted the overwhelming result (a 97% majority) of an internationally-observed referendum in which Crimea voted to leave the Ukraine and rejoin Russia, of which it had been a part from 1783 to 1954. The Russian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, part of Russia until the terrorist Communists had given them away to the Ukraine in 1922, similarly declared independence from Neo-Nazi Kiev. This starting a bloody war between US-backed separatists in Kiev and the local Eastern Ukrainian people.

Mrs Kagan wants an ever-more dangerous War with Russia and China to justify her militarist foreign policy and Pentagon budgets. She relies on her mythical version of Russian aggression and US ‘democratic’ intentions. She claims that Russia’s military budget, one-tenth of that of the US, is proof of ‘Russian confrontation and militarisation’. She wants ‘permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border’ and sees Russia’s desire to defend itself after so many successive (and failed) Western invasions as an obstacle to NATO’s expansionism. In short, the deluded Mrs Kagan has with others unleashed intractable violence, chaos and the risk of nuclear war. How does she sleep at night?

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Feb 2022: $643.2 billion. Half of that was frozen. Now it’s back up to $580.6 billion. In assets that can’t be frozen.

• Russia Continues To Stockpile Forex Reserves (RT)

Russia’s international holdings have reached $580.6 billion as of August 12, according to data published by the country’s central bank on Thursday. Moscow has been boosting its reserves as a shield against sanctions. The central bank regularly publishes updates on its reserves with a one-week lag. International reserves consist of foreign-currency funds, special drawing rights with the IMF and monetary gold. Total reserves surged by $5.8 billion from the previous week, the regulator said, noting that the 1% rise was due to a positive market revaluation.


The historical maximum of $643.2 billion was recorded in February 2022. Russia lost access to roughly half of its foreign reserves in early March after they were frozen by Western central banks as part of sanctions introduced by the US and its allies in response to the conflict in Ukraine. Despite this, the Russian Finance Ministry said the country would be able to cope with sanctions thanks to its abundant reserves.

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“..we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers..”

• UN Recruited Over 100,000 Digital First Responders to Push COVID Narrative (SN)

At the height of the pandemic, the United Nations recruited over 100,000 “digital first responders’ to push the establishment narrative on COVID via social media. The revelation actually slipped out in October 2020 during a World Economic Forum podcast called ‘Seeking a cure for the infodemic’, although it is only going viral on Twitter today. In the podcast, Melissa Fleming, head of global communications for the United Nations, explains how the COVID pandemic and lockdowns created a “communications crisis” in addition to a public health emergency. Fleming acknowledged that in order to fight so-called “misinformation” about the pandemic, the UN tapped up 110,000 people to amplify their messaging across social media.

“So far, we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers, and we equip these information volunteers with the kind of knowledge about how misinformation spreads and ask them to serve as kind of ‘digital first-responders’ in those spaces where misinformation travels,” Fleming stated. That was nearly 2 years ago. It is not known how many ‘digital first responders’ have been recruited up to this point. Similar efforts to create astroturf campaigns to push a specific message are nothing new, but when entities such as oil companies engage in it, they are lambasted for rigging the discussion. However, when globalist technocrats at the UN or the WEF do it, apparently it’s fine.

Last year, it was revealed that the British government used “propagandistic” fear tactics to scare the public into mass compliance during the first COVID lockdown, according to a behavioral scientist who worked inside Downing Street. Scientists in the UK working as advisors for the government admitted using what they later conceded to be “unethical” and “totalitarian” methods of instilling fear in the population in order to control behavior during the pandemic.

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Epic from The Ethical Skeptic. “The following work is the result of thousands of hours of dynamic data tracking and research..”

• Houston, We Have a Problem – Part 1 of 3 (Ethical Skeptic)

Seven of the major eleven International Classification of Diseases codes tracked by the US National Center for Health Statistics exhibit stark increase trends beginning in the first week of April 2021 – featuring exceptional growth more robust than during even the Covid-19 pandemic time frame. This date of inception is no coincidence, in that it also happens to coincide with a key inflection point regarding a specific body-system intervention in most of the US population. These seven pronounced increases in mortality alarmingly persist even now.

The following work is the result of thousands of hours of dynamic data tracking and research on the part of its author. The reader should anticipate herein, a journey which will take them through the methods and metrics which serve to identify this problem, along with a deductive assessment of the candidate causal mechanisms behind it. Alternatives as to cause which include one mechanism in particular, that is embargoed from being allowed as an explanation, nor even mere mention in some forums. At the end of this process, we will be left with one inescapable conclusion. One which threatens the very fabric and future of health policy in the US for decades to come.

On March 21st 2021, a longtime mentor, friend, and business partner of mine, an otherwise healthy 68 year old male, unexpectedly suffered an autoimmune cascade which ended up shutting down his pancreas, liver, kidneys, and finally heart. He had just received his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on that Thursday prior. Carl quickly descended into a coma, and then died on March 26th.1

On May 29th 2021, a rather odd signal began to develop in my regular Covid-19 tracking models. The change which alerted me resided inside the magnitude of the ‘Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99)’ ICD death code group. About this time and as a result of this observation, I began to track R00-R99 deaths, along with eleven other ICD-10 death codes, non-natural cause deaths (suicide, overdose, assault, etc.), and finally a statistic called ‘Excess Non-Covid Natural Cause Deaths’. As the reader reviews the calculated trends featured inside each of these death categorizations, they should note that this was indeed both a prescient and sound decision.

On December 1st of 2021, attending a business meeting at client’s medical complex, passing through the facility I took notice that their large oncology department waiting room was slammed full with patients. This queue of persons awaiting their oncology appointments spilled out into the hallway and finally on into the building atrium.2 While tempted at first blush to pass this off as a result of patients and their physicians ‘catching up on deferred screenings’ and/or ‘Covid-limited office days/hours effect’, my prior observational lessons suggested that I hold-off on such a knee-jerk inference, at least until the CDC – National Center for Health Statistics data (three bullet point sources below) proved out over the coming months. This as well, proved to be a wise decision.

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Is there even one country today with a Vit. D program? This article, too, does not define a satisfactory level. Why is it so hard?

• Insufficient Vitamin D Linked To Fourfold Increase In Covid-19 Mortality (IT)

Covid-19 patients with low vitamin D levels are more likely to suffer severe disease and death, according to a study by Irish scientists. Unvaccinated Caucasian adults with low vitamin D have higher mortality due to Sars CoV-2 pneumonia, according to the small-scale study by researchers at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown and Technological University Dublin. This is not explained by confounders such as age or obesity and is not closely linked to inflammation, they say. Having an insufficient level of vitamin D was associated with a greater than fourfold increased mortality risk, according to the study, published in the journal Nutrients.

The study looked at the outcomes of 232 unvaccinated patients at Connolly hospital, all of whom had Covid-19 and required supplemental oxygen. Patients on steroid treatment were not recruited for the study in order, the authors say, to eliminate the effect their use might have on measures of both vitamin D and inflammation. The mortality rate among patients aged under 70 and who had “insufficient” vitamin D levels (less than 30 nanomoles per litre) was 11.8 per cent, compared to 2.2 per cent who had higher vitamin levels (greater than 30 nanomoles per litre). Among over-70s, the mortality rate for those with insufficient vitamin D levels was 55 per cent, compared to 25 per cent for those with high vitamin D levels.

“Unvaccinated Caucasian adults with a low vitamin D state have higher mortality due to Sars CoV-2 pneumonia, which is not explained by confounders and is not closely linked with elevated serum CRP (C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation),” the authors state. The authors say their data adds to a growing body of literature that appears to support a causal link between low vitamin D status and Covid-19 disease severity and death. Although the research was conducted only on unvaccinated patients, they say vitamin D supplementation may play a vital role in protecting both unvaccinated patients and patients in whom the effect of vaccination wanes. Vitamin D is available from sunlight and in foods such as fish, eggs and fortified cereals. About half the Irish population is deficient in the vitamin.

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As NATO tries to get Zelensky in.

• China Backs African Union Bid To Join The Group of 20 (SCMP)

Beijing will support the African Union in its decades-long quest to join the G20, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday, as China vies with other powers for influence on the continent. South Africa is the only representative of the continent in the Group of 20 despite the African Union pushing for inclusion since its creation in 1999. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said last month he would invite the African bloc, representing 55 countries and 1.4 billion people, to the G20 summit in Bali in November to help the continent’s bid. The G20 comprises 19 countries and the European Union. European Council president Charles Michel also voiced his support last month for the AU’s bid for the G20.

Wang’s pledge also came as Widodo told Bloomberg on Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping planned to attend the Bali summit in person, along with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Xi could meet US President Joe Biden, who is also expected to attend the gathering. If so, it would be the first in-person meeting for the two leaders since Biden took office last year. Beijing and Washington are at odds on everything from Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the Biden administration has moved to expand its global alliances to counter China’s rise, Beijing has responded by focusing on shoring up ties with developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. A seat for the African Union at G20 is believed to be in Beijing’s interests in rallying support to counterbalance the US-led West.

Speaking at a virtual meeting with his African counterparts, Wang hailed African support for Beijing’s “one-China principle” and described their ties as “a pillar force” in defending the rights and interests of developing countries. “In the face of the various forms of hegemonic and bullying practices, China and Africa have stood with each other shoulder to shoulder,” he said. In a veiled swipe at US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Africa early this month, he also tried to present Beijing as an alternative to Washington and defend his country’s expanding presence there. “What Africa wishes for is a favourable and amicable cooperation environment, not the zero-sum cold war mentality. What Africa would welcome is mutually beneficial cooperation for the greater well-being of the people, not major-country rivalry for geopolitical gains,” he said.

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As the west disintegrates, east and south unite.

• Chinese Ambassador Outlines BRICS Vision (RT)

Russia and China remain key pillars of BRICS, an international alliance also comprising India, Brazil and South Africa, the Chinese ambassador to Moscow wrote in a guest opinion piece for Russia’s TASS news agency, published on Saturday. The two nations are the major “drivers” behind the development of the group, which is gradually becoming a leading force in the international arena, Zhang Hanhui, added. The BRICS countries account for 42% of the world’s population and 25% of the global economy, Zhang said, adding that they account for roughly half of global economic growth, meaning that “the value of cooperation within BRICS is constantly rising.”

The group of emerging economies is increasingly attracting the attention of other nations, the envoy said, noting that representatives of 50 countries took part in various BRICS+ events in the first half of this year alone. He also welcomed the development of the BRICS+ format, which allows other countries to join the group’s permanent members in certain discussions. Three such events this year were attended by the leaders of 13 non-BRICS states, Zhang said. International challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine conflict and rising tensions between major world powers, demand that Moscow and Beijing “strengthen their strategic cooperation,” the ambassador said, adding that BRICS should also “support efforts opposing hegemony and contribute to the establishment of real multilateralism” in international relations.

The ambassador pointed out that since the start of 2022, the BRICS nations have agreed on several initiatives in the field of economic digitalization and technology sharing. Beijing, which heads the group this year, has put forward a number of initiatives that would further enhance cooperation between members in the fields of innovation, he added. The Covid-19 pandemic also demonstrated the need for closer cooperation in medical research, the ambassador said, pointing to the need for sharing healthcare products with developing nations to help them overcome the pandemic. Zhang noted that in March, the BRICS countries launched a joint vaccine development center, offering joint research and development platforms to developing nations.

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Hey, Khan! Talk to Putin!

• Millions Could Be Left Without Heat And Food In Winter, London Mayor Warns (RT)

Millions of people in the UK could find themselves unable to put food on the table and heat their homes this coming winter if the government doesn’t intervene, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Saturday. “We’ve seen nothing like this before,” Khan wrote on Twitter, referring to soaring energy prices and record inflation of more than 10%. “We’re facing a winter where for millions it won’t be about choosing between heating or eating but tragically being able to afford neither,” he warned. “This can’t happen,” the mayor insisted, adding that the British government “needs to step in so that people can meet their basic needs.”

He accompanied the post with a data from the Auxilione energy consultancy, predicting that energy bills in the UK could increase by 80% in October, exceeding £3,600 ($4,292) per year on average. For comparison, the cap set by energy industry regulator, Ofgem, in October 2021 stood at £1,400 per year. Khan also spoke on the same issue on Friday while visiting a warehouse that distributes supplies to food banks in one of London’s boroughs. He gave assurances that his administration is“committed” to providing support for struggling Londoners, but called on the government to work harder, as there is “no sign of this rise in costs slowing down”.

“Ministers must act now to help prevent this cost of living crisis becoming a national disaster,” the mayor said. Economic difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe have been further exacerbated by Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent decrease in Russian natural gas supplies to the EU.

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“Europe really needs to act as a negotiator between NATO, Russia and Ukraine, and include China in the discussions..”

• Just How Bad Could Things Get This Winter? (RT)

Natural gas prices across Europe have quadrupled this year. Looking ahead to winter and imagining the new heights energy values may hit, consumers are starting to opt for an alternative (old) form of heating – wood. Huge demand for combustibles, as well as for wood stoves, has been detected in several Western states. In Germany, where almost a half of homes are heated with gas, people are turning to a more guaranteed energy source. Firewood sellers tell local media that they are barely coping with the demand. The country is also witnessing a rise in cases of wood theft. Next door, in the Netherlands, business owners note that their clients are buying wood earlier than ever. In Belgium, wood producers are struggling with demand, while prices are going up – as they are across the region.

In Denmark, one local stove manufacturer told the media that, while demand for his product was on the rise since the start of the Covid pandemic, this year’s profit is forecast to reach over 16 million kroner (€2 million), compared with 2.4 million in 2019. A huge increase. Even Hungary, a country that didn’t support the EU’s decision to phase out Russian fossil fuels and agreed a new gas purchase with Moscow this summer, is making preparations for a tough winter. The country has announced a ban on the export of firewood and relaxed some restrictions on logging. The World Wildlife Fund Hungary has expressed its concern on the matter, declaring: “There has been no precedent for such a decision in our country for decades.” In fact, the conflict in Ukraine is not the only reason for the energy crisis. The increase in prices had already been observed in 2021.

“It was the effect of supply chain interruptions due to COVID, a very cold winter, very hot summer and China’s energy crisis, that led to [the] buying [of] huge amounts of LNG around the world,” says Professor Phoebe Koundouri, Director of the Research laboratory on Socio-Economic and Environmental Sustainability at Athens University of Economics and Business, and President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. When the conflict in Ukraine came about, the sanctions against Russia – followed by Moscow’s response to the restrictions – sent prices through roof. “Europe really needs to act as a negotiator between NATO, Russia and Ukraine, and include China in the discussions, in order to find a solution that is meaningful for the millions of people that are being affected by this geopolitical crisis,” Prof. Koundourisays.

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“It is conceivable that the population would rebel or that there would be looting..”

• Swiss Revolt Warning Issued (RT)

Swiss people may revolt and resort to looting if the Alpine nation is hit by a severe energy crunch this winter, the police chief of one of its cantons told local media on Saturday. Fredy Fassler, the head of the Security and Justice Department in the canton of St. Gallen, told German-language daily Blick that a blackout would have “far-reaching consequences.” “Imagine, you can no longer withdraw money at the ATM, you can no longer pay with the card in the store or refuel your tank at the gas station. Heating stops working. It’s cold. Streets go dark. It is conceivable that the population would rebel or that there would be looting,” he said, adding that the country’s authorities should take measures to prepare for such extreme scenarios. According to Fassler, while he does not think such a disaster is likely, police have prepared for such an eventuality.


Exercises that were conducted in 2014 to prepare for a blackout scenario revealed major shortcomings, including lack of emergency generators for police, hospitals and other critical infrastructure and services, he said. “These shortcomings have been addressed in recent years, so the security forces are ready,” the police chief added, noting that his agency is even prepared to provide the Swiss with cash if they are unable to use cards in stores, given that relevant agreements with banks have been signed. Fassler’s comments come after Swiss authorities said last week that they may place restrictions on energy consumption this coming winter, signaling that “power shortages [are] among the most serious risks” for the landlocked country. Earlier, Werner Luginbuhl, the head of Switzerland’s electricity regulator ElCom, complained that electricity was being used “completely thoughtlessly,” and urged citizens to stock up on candles and firewood due to possible power outages in the country this winter.

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“..I think going through your regulatory process will actually hurt the quality of my food and that’s what I’m being paid top dollar for, it is this high quality food.”

• Amish Farmer Fighting US Government For Right To Sell His All-natural Food (RN)

Miller’s Organic Farm is located in the remote Amish village of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. The farm supplies everything from grass-fed beef and cheese, to raw milk and organic eggs, to dairy from grass-fed water buffalo and all types of produce, all to roughly 4,000 private food club members who pay top dollar for high quality whole food. The private food club members appreciate their freedom to get food from an independent farmer that isn’t processing his meat and dairy at U.S. Department of Agriculture facilities, which mandates that food be prepared in ways that Miller’s Organic Farm believe make it less nutritious. Amos Miller, the farm’s owner, contends that he’s preparing food the way God intended — but the U.S. government doesn’t see things that way. They recently sent armed federal agents to the farm and demanded he cease operations. The government is also looking to issue more than $300,000 in fines — a request so steep, it would put the farm out of business.

“There’s this farmer named Amos Miller and he’s been farming for 25 years. No electricity, no fertilizer, no gasoline. He has really, really impressive crop yields using only the only the oldest of methods, totally organic. He has milk, he has beef, he has different types of sheep. He has chicken, all types of vegetables. And he has a private buyers club of about 4,000 people all across the country that pay him top dollar for his food. And the government doesn’t like this idea of a private buyers club. They have raided his farm with armed federal agents and they have said he needs to stop selling his meat until he gets regulated by the federal agencies whose job it is to, you know, regulate food.

And he says, “you know, the way you guys regulate it, it kind of hurts the nutrition of the food — you know, you wash it in these things, you’ve given these vaccines and the cows get all types of medicine, I don’t do any of that. So I think going through your regulatory process will actually hurt the quality of my food and that’s what I’m being paid top dollar for, it is this high quality food.” So they are fining him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they’ve actually sent armed federal agents there to take inventory of his meat, of his dairy, and they visit him to make sure that he’s not selling anything and that he’s not ramping up his production in any way. So that’s where he is now. He’s figuring out how to fight the federal government, what he’s going to do. And you know, he’s been put in this really tight spot along with the people who, you know, look to him for this food. They’re not getting their meat and dairy right now because of the government.

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“No farms, no food.”

• Dutch Farmers Confront Billionaire ‘Green’ Elite’s Food System Reset Plan (GZ)

Dutch farmers’ protests offer a preview of the resistance to come as transnational “green” billionaires advance a “reset” of the global food system. The elite agenda threatens to deepen an international cost of living crisis and spark unrest well beyond The Netherlands. Ingrid de Sain is a Dutch farmer who lives in the Northern Holland town of Schellinkhout, where she and her family tend to a 62 acre farm with about 100 dairy cows. Like thousands of fellow citizens in her industry, she now finds herself locked in an existential conflict with her government. “Farming is in your heart,” de Sain told The Grayzone. “And you don’t want to do something else. You’re a farmer or you’re not.” She says she will oppose any efforts requiring her to give up a farm that guarantees prosperity for future generations of her family.

The Dutch government announced plans to slash nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions in June 2022, enforcing an ambitious agenda in the name of protecting the climate. The imposed reductions could spell devastating consequences for the country’s farming industry and add enormous stress to already chaotic global food supply chains. Today, the Netherlands is Europe’s top exporter of meat and the second largest agricultural exporter overall in the world, right behind the US. The tiny nation’s agricultural success is the product of its traditional dependence on generously sized farms that use nitrogen-rich fertilizer to produce heavy yields. Such methods were encouraged by Brussels through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which prioritized the growth of cattle lots, incentivized the use of chemical fertilizers, and pushed many smaller family farmers out of operation.

In 2019, a Dutch court order declared in 2019 that nitrogen-compound fertilizer was a top threat to the climate and biodiversity, and mandated a 70-80% decrease in its use. If implemented in the country, the proposed reductions could destroy a full third of its farming output and eliminate somewhere between 30 and 50% of Dutch livestock. The stage was set for open conflict. Once the pro-EU coalition government of Dutch PM Mark Rutte took steps to implement the restrictions in June 2022, local farmers responded immediately with ferocious mass protests that have blocked roads, airports, and grocery distribution centers. Since the outbreak of demonstrations, supermarkets shelves have gone empty as the farmers’ cry of “No farms, no food” reverberates nationwide.

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Same bike, same couple – 1955 and 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 29 2022

May 292022
 
 May 29, 2022  Posted by at 8:39 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Edouard Manet Gypsy with a cigarette 1862

 

• Servant Of The Corrupt (IM1776)
• Russia Solidifies Gains in Eastern Ukraine (CTH)
• US To Transfer Long-range Rocket Systems To Ukraine (PressTV)
• Putin Urged To Hold ‘Direct, Serious Negotiations’ With Zelensky (BBC)
• Russia’s Necessary and Legal Military Response to US/NATO Aggression (Gritsch)
• The Eurasian Economic Union Steps Up (Escobar)
• Qatar Gas Shipments To Germany Will Actually Come From Texas (MEE)
• Civilisation and Anti-Civilisation (Batiushka)
• Mexican President Unlikely To Attend Summit Of The Americas (LATimes)
• The World Health Organisation Has Lost All Credibility (Clark)
• California Poised to Adopt ‘Medical Misinformation Bill’ (ET)
• SEC Publishes Letter Asking Elon Musk To Explain Late Twitter Filing (G.)
• UN Warns of ‘Total Societal Collapse’, Breach of Planetary Boundaries (BT)

 

 

 

 

Bidenese

 

 

 

 

Maajid
https://twitter.com/i/status/1530516870436200448

 

 

“.. the Pandora Papers showed him to be just as crooked as his predecessors.”

• Servant Of The Corrupt (IM1776)

In February 2021, by order of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine shut down three domestic television channels, accusing them of spreading Russian “propaganda.” Three months later, Zelenksky arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, who was at the time leading the second-biggest party in Ukraine’s national parliament, the pro-Russia and Eurosceptic Opposition Platform for Life (OPZZh). Zelensky didn’t have trouble incinerating vaunted democratic norms well-before Russia crossed the Rubicon into Ukraine this year. So it was no surprise when he did it again amid the war in late March, invoking emergency powers under martial law to nationalize TV channels and ban 11 opposition parties, including OPZZh — all supposedly done in the name of combatting Russian misinformation and Russian sympathizers, even though OPZZh’s then-chairman, Yuriy Boyko, denounced the war and called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. Zelensky, however, wouldn’t miss another opportunity to clip the wings of political opposition in his country, certainly not now that Western media rationalizes and glorifies his every move.

But the portrait of the Ukraine President as a democratic paragon whitewashes the real Zelensky and conceals a vast web of corruption and international skullduggery of which Ukraine is situated in the centre. Understanding the real Zelensky, requires seeing him as a creation of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. He is, in truth, a puppet of intrigue. It might be hard to believe now, but revelations from documents in the Pandora Papers — millions of files from offshore service providers leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with partners around the world — sent Zelensky reeling last year, threatening to end his political career. Though the actor-turned-politico campaigned as an anti-corruption reformer, the Pandora Papers showed him to be just as crooked as his predecessors.

Of more than 300 politicians and public officials, including several current and former national leaders, in more than 91 countries and territories to whom the documents were linked, Ukraine was home to more secret offshore holdings than any other, including Russia. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which contributed to the investigation, found that just before Zelensky was elected president, “he gifted his stake in a key offshore company, the British Virgin Islands-registered Maltex Multicapital Corp., to his business partner — soon to be his top presidential aide. And in spite of giving up his shares, the documents show that an arrangement was soon made that would allow the offshore to keep paying dividends to a company that now belongs to his wife.”

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“come back coward, I’ll bite your kneecaps.”

• Russia Solidifies Gains in Eastern Ukraine (CTH)

If you were to read the play-by-play of information in the U.K. Telegraph, you could get whiplash from the diametrically opposed narratives coming from both sides in the propaganda war. On one hand the western narrative is that Russia is losing, getting weaker, running out of money and weapons. On the other hand, France and Germany are asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to release all of the captured soldiers he is gathering, while western media claim all the Ukraine retreats are “strategic”. It would appear the Monty Python knight has lost all his appendages and is yelling, “come back coward, I’ll bite your kneecaps.”

(Via Telegraph) – “Russia said its forces were in full control of the Ukrainian town of Lyman, a railway hub in the Donetsk region, on Saturday in a gain that would help set the stage for the next phase of the Kremlin’s offensive in the eastern Donbas. Ukrainian and Russian forces had been fighting for Lyman for several days. The town lies 40 km (30 miles) west of Severodonetsk, the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine but now under heavy assault from Russian forces. The governor of Luhansk region, which along with Donetsk makes up the Donbas, said on Friday that Russian troops had entered Severodonetsk. The Russian gains indicate a shift in momentum in the war.”


Meanwhile the U.S. State Department, the actual combatant command center for the U.S. proxy war, along with internationally aligned diplomatic corps and the U.S. intelligence apparatus, are continuing to push the propaganda as if we cannot see how clearly staged it is. Indeed, with the Pentagon preferring a ceasefire and peaceful negotiations while the State Dept demands more war, these are very remarkable times on the other side of the looking glass.

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“a serious step towards unacceptable escalation”

• US To Transfer Long-range Rocket Systems To Ukraine (PressTV)

The US has decided to further extend military aid to Ukraine, transferring long-range rocket systems to the country while Russia continues to make advancements in its special operations in the Donbas. US officials said on Friday that despite its earlier reservations in regard to sending missile systems to Ukraine, following Kiev’s insistence Washington had agreed to deliver them the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) or the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) next week. Western countries led by the United States had already provided Ukraine with long-range weaponry, including M777 howitzers. However, Kiev insisted that it wanted longer-range ground weapons, especially rocket launchers, to help it win artillery battles.


Till now, Washington had held back from providing Kiev with such weapons partly to avoid an escalation should Ukraine strike targets deep inside the Russian territories. American and diplomatic officials told Reuters that Washington had even relayed to Kiev the concerns White House officials had in regard to this issue. “We have concerns about escalation and yet still do not want to put geographic limits or tie their hands too much with the stuff we’re giving them,” one US official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, was quoted as saying. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had already warned the White House against providing long-range missile systems to the country. Lavrov pointed out that providing Kiev forces with weapons that could reach Russian territory would be “a serious step towards unacceptable escalation” of the conflict.

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Macron and Scholz spent 80 minutes demanding Putin do things they know he cannot do.

• Putin Urged To Hold ‘Direct, Serious Negotiations’ With Zelensky (BBC)

The leaders of France and Germany have urged Russia’s Vladimir Putin to hold “direct [and] serious negotiations” with Ukraine’s president, the German chancellor’s office said. Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz spoke to Mr Putin by phone for 80 minutes. The pair “insisted on an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops”, the chancellor’s office said. Russia’s leader said Moscow was open to resuming dialogue with Kyiv, according to the Kremlin. It did not mention the possibility of direct talks between Mr Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president earlier said he was not “eager” for talks, but added they would likely be necessary to end the conflict. Russian and Ukrainian delegations have held multiple rounds of talks remotely and in person since Russia invaded on 24 February, but efforts have stalled of late.


France and Germany also urged Mr Putin to release 2,500 Ukrainian fighters taken as prisoners-of-war at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. The sprawling factory became the last holdout in the southern port city, which endured relentless bombardment from Russian forces and now lies in ruins. Earlier this month, Moscow officials said the last fighters defending the plant had surrendered, while President Zelensky said they had been given permission to leave. Russia has previously said more than 900 of the fighters were moved to a reopened prison colony in Olenivka, a village in Russian-occupied Donetsk. A smaller number with serious wounds were taken to a hospital in the town of Novoazovsk, also in Donetsk. Ukraine hopes they will be released as part of a prisoner exchange – but Russia has not confirmed that. Some Russian lawmakers argue the fighters should be tried or even executed.

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“..Russia exhibited enormous restraint as the US and Ukraine violated the Minsk Protocols and rejected requests for diplomacy..”

It doesn’t matter if you agree or not, what matters is that everyone in the west should be exposed to Russians view of this. And then form their opinions.

• Russia’s Necessary and Legal Military Response to US/NATO Aggression (Gritsch)

In 2014, the US initiated a proxy war against Russia by engineering the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically-elected president. This ignited a bloody civil war on Russia’s border in which the US-installed and US-armed Kiev regime attacked the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk whose largely ethnically Russian residents opposed the US coup. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) documented the Kiev regime’s attacks that killed thousands of civilians and terrorized the populace. In 2015, the US-installed then-president, Petro Poroshenko, publicly articulated Kiev’s anti-Russia stance and its policy for the Donbass:

“We will have jobs—they will not. We will have pensions—they will not. [….] Our children will go to schools and kindergartens—theirs will hide in the basements.” Popular Ukraine pundits openly called for Donbas residents’ extermination. In 2015, Congress lifted its ban on funding Ukraine’s neo Nazi militias and placed US military trainers on the ground inside Ukraine. NATO and the CIA also began training Ukraine regime forces–effectively establishing Ukraine as a de facto US/NATO mercenary state. During the past eight years, Russia exhibited enormous restraint as the US and Ukraine violated the Minsk Protocols and rejected requests for diplomacy. In 2021, US aggression against Russia increased dramatically once Biden took office–in Ukraine and in the Black Sea. US actions and Ukraine President Zelensky’s public statements generated immediate threats to the survival of the Russian nation-state.

The US government and the corporate media falsely characterize Russia’s special operation as entirely ‘unprovoked’ and an ‘illegal invasion’. These allegations ignore four conditions which each independently compelled President Putin and the Duma to initiate Russia’s denazification and demilitarization operation and which establish this intervention as consistent with international legal norms. Chief among the factors necessitating Russia’s immediate military response were indications of an imminent new massacre as 125,000 Ukraine forces amassed along the border of Donbass in December of 2021. This was never reported in the US corporate press. Instead, the US government and corporate media repeatedly stated that Russian troops were gathering on Ukraine’s border (inside Russia) and predicted an impending Russian invasion.

In hindsight, US intelligence could make this accurate claim because it was aware of the menacing buildup of Ukraine forces. Anticipating an imminent massacre, Russia was obligated to intervene militarily because it had a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) the citizens of Donbass. R2P is a political commitment to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; it was endorsed by the United Nations at its 2005 world summit.

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“..the centre of economic development [..] continues to move into the Asia-Pacific Region.”

• The Eurasian Economic Union Steps Up (Escobar)

The first Eurasian Economic Forum, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, took place this week at a very sensitive geopolitical juncture, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov keeps stressing that, “the West has declared total war against us, against the entire Russian world. Nobody even hides this now.” It’s always important to remember that before Maidan in 2014, Ukraine had the option to become a full member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and even balance it with a loose association with the EU. The EAEU comprises five full members – Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia – yet 14 nations sent delegations to the forum, including China, Vietnam and Latin American nations. There was much rumbling that the proceedings would be jeopardized by the serial sanctions packages imposed on Russia by the collective West.

There’s no question that some EAEU members – such as Kazakhstan – seem to be more worried about the effects of the sanctions than about fine-tuning business with Russia. Yet that’s not the point. The crucial point is that by 2025 they have to harmonize their legislation concerning financial markets. And that’s directly connected to what the executive body of the EAEU, led by Sergey Glazyev, is working on, extensively: designing the lineaments of an alternative financial/economic system to what the West would rather coin as Bretton Woods 3. The Eurasian Economic Forum was established by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council explicitly to further deepen economic cooperation between EAEU members. No wonder the official theme of the forum was Eurasian Economic Integration in the Era of Global Shifts: New Investment Opportunities, focusing on strategic development in the industrial, energy, transport, financial, and digital areas.

President Putin’s speech to the plenary session was quite revealing. To really appreciate the scope of what’s implied, it’s important to remember that the Greater Eurasian Partnership concept was presented by Putin in 2016 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, focused on a “more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the Eurasian Economic Union” and including China, Pakistan, Iran and India. Putin stressed how the drive for developing ties “within the framework of the Greater Eurasian Partnership” (…) “was not the political situation but global economic trends, because the centre of economic development is gradually – we are aware of this, and our businesspeople are aware of this – is gradually moving, continues to move into the Asia-Pacific Region.”

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“Qatar produces around 107 billion cbm of gas annually, and 80 percent of that is locked in long-term contracts. Only 10-15 percent can be diverted to Europe – the numbers don’t add up..”

• Qatar Gas Shipments To Germany Will Actually Come From Texas (MEE)

Germany and Qatar signed a deal last week to deepen their energy partnership focusing on the supply and processing of liquified natural gas (LNG). LNG is Qatar’s main export and is desperately needed in Germany as it seeks alternatives to its current energy dependency on Russian natural gas. Berlin is under pressure to introduce an energy embargo in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also faces the prospect that Moscow could cut off gas supplies unilaterally – as it has already to Poland, Bulgaria and Finland – in retaliation for Germany’s diplomatic support and military aid to Ukraine But industry experts tell MEE that the deal is mired with caveats on the German side.

Thomas O’Donnell, an energy and geopolitical analyst based in Berlin, says the German government is losing political ground due to rising energy costs. He suggests the deal with Qatar amounts to a short-term gimmick intended to shore up support. “They failed to fill their gas storage before the winter last year and that led to nearly a 30 percent hike in energy costs for the domestic consumer. If they fail again there might be calls for the government to go,” said O’Donnell. “Around 56 percent of Germany’s gas consumption comes from Russia. That’s billions of cubic metres of gas through dedicated pipelines, NordStream1 and TurkStream. It would take a monumental effort to shift that heavy a dependency to another supplier.” According to O’Donnell, in 2021 Germany used around 71 billion cubic metres (cbm) of gas from Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Replacing such large volumes with Qatari gas is simply not possible. “Qatar produces around 107 billion cbm of gas annually, and 80 percent of that is locked in long-term contracts. Only 10-15 percent can be diverted to Europe – the numbers don’t add up,” he said. O’Donnell said that European countries’ desperation means that they are paying a heavy price for spot gas – that is large deliveries of gas purchased in one-off transactions. These transactions are often made on an emergency basis when the buyer has to pay a much higher rate than when purchased on long-term contracts. The current price of spot gas is up 176 percent from last year. “The US has the most spot gas available in the market and much of it is being bought by Europe at very high rates,” said O’Donnell.

Von der Leyen is a psychopath

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“..just because God ‘told’ George Bush to invade Iraq in 2003, that did not make him or his forces Christian.”

• Civilisation and Anti-Civilisation (Batiushka)

Western war has always consisted of highly organised violence, aided by the most aggressive high technology. Advances in military technology have all been initiated by the West. It used to be castles against arrows, the lethal crossbow against pikes, cannon against stone walls, the musket against bows, the Maxim gun, invented by the Anglo-American ‘Sir’ Hiram Maxim (3) against spear-throwing Africans, then it was poison gas (as used by Hitler, that is Churchill (sorry for the Bushism, ‘anyway’) against the Kurds), then Agent Orange, cluster bombs and uranium-tipped shells against rifles. To illustrate this, let us think about how those used to the way that such technology is exploited criticise the special operation (not war) in the Ukraine (4). They claim that the progress of the Russian operation, carried out by relatively small numbers of liberation forces from Donetsk and Lugansk and of Confederate Russian troops, is ‘too slow’.

Here they misunderstand how the Allied/Confederate forces use their military technology. It is quite unlike the US and its Union NATO vassals. The latter carpet bomb, they cause ‘collateral damage’ (the NATO euphemism for the mass murder of innocent victims) and are hugely destructive, as though war was all a special effects show, a spectacle for entertainment as in Hollywood films, most of which portray great destruction. This is why nearly 20 years ago the American Rumsfeld spoke of the US destruction of civilian infrastructure in Iraq as ‘shock and awe’, which is just another euphemism – Hitler would have called it ‘Blitzkrieg’. Yes, of course, Russian civilisation conducts military operations ‘slowly’ (5): it is not a US-style special effects operation, it is meant to avoid civilian and military casualties. You cannot translate ‘collateral damage’ into Russian, you can only paraphrase it.

Western religion has a similar story to tell. As we have said, every civilisation has a set of sacred values. The Western too and though it calls its religion ‘Christianity’, it is not. For instance, it insists on calling the Crusaders and Teutonic Knights ‘Christians’. But just because you are a bloodthirsty barbarian who commits genocide with a cross on your uniform, that does not make you a Christian. Just as Nazis wore a belt with ‘Gott mit uns’ (‘God with us’) stamped on it, that did not make them Christian either. And when the Nazis put crosses on their tanks and dive-bombers, it did not make them Christian either (though the crosses did take in some naïve Western Ukrainians in 1941). And just because God ‘told’ George Bush to invade Iraq in 2003, that did not make him or his forces Christian. Frankly, the Western use of the word Christian is blasphemous to Orthodox Christians and the more accurate use of words like ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ is insulting to those who are of those religions.

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“What is this supposed to be, the Summit of the Americas, or the Summit of the Friends of America?”

• Mexican President Unlikely To Attend Summit Of The Americas (LATimes)

Despite a major U.S. lobbying effort, the president of Mexico hinted strongly on Friday that he will not attend a high-stakes regional summit next month in Los Angeles because the Biden administration refuses to invite a trio of leftist governments. Mexico is arguably the most important Latin American participant in the upcoming Summit of the Americas, which administration officials have said will include a special focus on immigration. It starts June 6. In his daily marathon press conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was still awaiting a response from President Biden or the U.S. State Department to his demand that all countries in the Western Hemisphere be invited.

Every host nation for the summit, which occurs every three or four years, has discretion in drawing up the guest list, and most if not all countries are routinely included. This is the first time the summit is taking place in the U.S. since its 1994 inaugural session in Miami. Administration officials have made it clear they will not invite Venezuela or Nicaragua, because those countries’ authoritarian leaders do not represent the model of democracy Washington and others in the region seek to promote. U.S. officials also said initially they would not invite Cuba, then suggested they might welcome a “low level” delegation from Havana. A diminished status did not appeal to Cuban officials, however, and President Miguel Díaz-Canel said earlier this week he will not attend.

Cuba was present at the last two Summits of the Americas, in Panama and Peru. In Panama in 2015, then-President Obama famously shook hands with then-President Raul Castro, the first such contact between the Cold War enemies in decades. Months later, Washington and Havana opened diplomatic ties and began a warming of trade and travel relations not seen for half a century. The opening was frozen by President Trump and has only haltingly and in minor ways been renewed by Biden, despite his promises as a presidential candidate.

López Obrador, a consummate showman, deliberately did not commit in his remarks Friday morning but ultimately made clear he would not attend if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were not invited. Instead, he would send a delegate, most likely his more-U.S.-friendly foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard. “We are going to wait to see what they [U.S. officials] decide, but regardless, Mexico will participate,” the president said. “It’s just that I will not attend if all countries are not invited.” He added: “What is this supposed to be, the Summit of the Americas, or the Summit of the Friends of America?”

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“The only European country on the WHO’s board is Slovakia..”

• The World Health Organisation Has Lost All Credibility (Clark)

Let’s be honest: is there anyone out there who has faith in the ability of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to tackle a future pandemic? Any lingering hope that the WHO might be an organisation fit to be trusted with global heath concerns has pretty well evaporated with the election, by acclamation, of China as one of the 12 members of its executive board on Friday. It is true, of course, that an international body must have representation from all over the world if it is going to win the near-universal cooperation it needs in order to operate. It can’t be led entirely by western democracies and wealthy South Asian countries even if they might have the best skills available; you need members able to tap into every culture and religion on Earth.

But ought we really be trusting leadership of the WHO to a government which is not merely a malignant dictatorship, accused of human rights abuses against its own citizens – but which has also obstructed an investigation into the high likelihood that it accidentally caused the last pandemic? The story of how Covid-19 began has been investigated very thoroughly in Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s excellent book, Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid-19. If no one has quite pegged down where the virus came from – and probably never will – there is at least a very strong case to answer that it originated in Chinese laboratory experiments aimed at researching how to tackle coronaviruses, and that it entered the population through a laboratory leak. It would hardly be unprecedented for a virus to leak from a laboratory in this way – even if it would make it way and above the world’s most expensive laboratory accident.

What has been China’s response to this possibility? To try to snuff out any investigation into the matter. Bizarrely, a WHO team allowed into China in early 2021, and chaperoned at every turn, tried to dismiss a lab leak, announcing that it would not investigate the matter any further. It isn’t just China whose presence on the WHO Executive Board will cause alarm. Also on the list is Brazil, whose own parliament has recommended criminal charges against the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, over his handling of the pandemic. Then there is Yemen, which is in the grip of civil war. The only European country on the WHO’s board is Slovakia, which hardly has the greatest political clout and which happens to have had one of the highest deaths rates from Covid-19 anywhere.

Sagan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1530461678772559872

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All critical thinking banned. Why would anyone still want to become a doctor?

• California Poised to Adopt ‘Medical Misinformation Bill’ (ET)

The California Legislature is poised to pass Assembly Bill 2098, described as a “medical misinformation bill.” If passed, the new law would prohibit doctors from freely providing medical advice and treating their patients if those practices run counter to the official state sanctioned position. In April 2020, the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs, the California State Board of Pharmacy, and the Medical Board of California issued a statement regarding the “improper prescribing of medications related to treatment of Novel Coronavirus,” such as hydroxychloroquine, warning that “inappropriately prescribing or dispensing medications constitutes unprofessional conduct in California.”

On June 29, 2021, the Federation of State Medical Boards issued a warning, stating that “Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.” In August 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci said there was no evidence that ivermectin works, and that it’s more likely to cause harm. In December 2021, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning headlined, “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.” In an updated April 29, 2022, report, the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel said it “recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in clinical trials.”

Should AB 2098 become law, doctors who prescribe medications not approved by the state or who claim unsanctioned drugs are effective would see their licenses revoked and face strict penalties and disciplinary actions by the Medical Board of California. In short, AB 2098 would designate the dissemination of information not approved by the state related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes “COVID-19,” as misinformation or disinformation, which constitutes unprofessional conduct. One physician, Dr. Syed Haider, has already been reported to four state medical boards by pharmacists he says “don’t like filling ivermectin prescriptions.” He has also been forced to retain a lawyer to protect his medical license.

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And they’ll all sell their Tesla’s.

• SEC Publishes Letter Asking Elon Musk To Explain Late Twitter Filing (G.)

The US financial watchdog has contacted Elon Musk about the disclosure of his stake in Twitter, asking the Tesla chief executive why he appeared to file a crucial form late. The Securities and Exchange Commission published a letter sent to the world’s richest man in which it asks a series of questions about how he declared his acquisition of a 9.2% stake on 4 April. The move prompted a flurry of corporate activity that led to Twitter accepting a $44bn (£35bn) takeover bid from Musk on 25 April – although he has since announced that the deal is “on hold” while he seeks more information about the proportion of fake accounts on Twitter.

In the 4 April letter, the SEC asked why a schedule 13G form announcing Musk’s acquisition of a large shareholding “does not appear” to have been filed within the required 10 days of the stake passing the 5% level where it needs to be disclosed publicly. According to Musk’s own filing, he passed the 5% level on 14 March and therefore should have filed the form by 24 March. “Please advise us why the schedule 13G does not appear to have been made within the required 10 days from the date of acquisition as required by rule 13d-1(c), the rule upon which you represented that you relied to make the submission,” said the SEC in the letter, dated 10 days before Musk announced his takeover bid. The SEC said that once it had reviewed Musk’s reply it “may have additional comments”.

In 2018, Musk reached a settlement with the SEC over a tweet in which he said was considering taking Tesla off the stock market and into private ownership and had “funding secured” for the proposal. Investors filed a lawsuit against Musk on Wednesday in which they claimed Musk had saved himself $156m by failing to disclose that he had bought more than 5% of Twitter in a timely manner. The letter also asks Musk to explain why he filed a 13G, which is for passive investors who are not preparing to shake up the business in question. The SEC points out that an investor must file a different form, a 13D, if they have bought the shares with the intention of changing or influencing the control of the company in question. The day after filing his initial form, Musk refiled it as a 13D, for investors who intend to take an active role.

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Problem: the UN has no credibility left either.

• UN Warns of ‘Total Societal Collapse’, Breach of Planetary Boundaries (BT)

When the United Nations published its 2022 ‘Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction’ (GAR2022) in May, the world’s attention was on its grim verdict that the world was experiencing an accelerating trend of natural disasters and economic crises. But not a single media outlet picked up the biggest issue: the increasing probability of civilisational collapse. Buried in the report, which was endorsed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, is the finding that escalating synergies between disasters, economic vulnerabilities and ecosystem failures are escalating the risk of a “global collapse” scenario. This stark conclusion appears to be the first time that the UN has issued a flagship global report finding that existing global policies are accelerating toward the collapse of human civilisation.

Yet somehow this urgent warning has remained unreported until now. The report does not suggest that this outcome is inevitable or specify how close to this possibility we are. But it does confirm that, without radical change, that’s where the world is heading. he UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework are a set of social, economic, legal, political and institutional measures to reduce “disaster risk and losses” – both involve targets to 2030 which the world is in danger of failing to meet. That failure, however, is directly linked to the rate at which human activities are interfering with natural systems, in particular, ‘planetary boundaries’.

The planetary boundaries framework was developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2009 to provide what it calls a “science-based analysis of the risk that human perturbations will destabilise the Earth system at the planetary scale”. This framework identifies a range of nine key ecosystems which, if pushed passed a certain threshold, will dramatically reduce the “safe operating space” for human habitation. The report notes that at least four of the nine planetary boundaries now seem to be operating outside the safe operating space. While land system change and climate change are in a zone of “uncertainty with increasing risk” of overstepping the safe operating space, the report says, biochemical flows and ‘novel entities’ (“new engineered chemicals, materials or organisms and natural elements mobilised by human activity such as heavy metals”) have “far exceeded” that space.

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Bourla neck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1529761915496542208

 

 

 

Life is so, so beautiful
https://twitter.com/i/status/1530264225763020801

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 20 2019

Nov 202019
 
 November 20, 2019  Posted by at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  14 Responses »


Dorothea Lange Miserable poverty. Elm Grove, Oklahoma County, OK 1936

 

• Australia’s Westpac Bank Slapped With 23 Million Money Laundering Breaches (R.)
• UN Demands ‘Full Investigation’ After Sweden Drops Assange Rape Probe (RT)
• Swedish Decision To Drop Rape Probe Comes Too Late To Help Assange (Szamuely)
• Statement For Aaron Swartz Day 2019 (Chelsea Manning )
• Massive ‘Dark-Money’ Group Boosted Democrats In 2018 (Pol.)
• Another Congresswoman Lashes Out At The Hill (Pol.)
• FBI CItes Strzok For Misconduct, ‘Exceptionally Poor Judgment’ (Solomon)
• Beijing’s Angry Reaction To High Court Mask Ruling Sparks Concern (SCMP)
• China Vows To Retaliate If Trump Signs Hong Kong Democracy Act Into Law (SCMP)
• Reclaiming Your Inner Fascist (C.J. Hopkins)
• Fossil Fuel Production On Track For Double The Safe Climate Limit (G.)

 

 

“The regulator is pursuing fines of up to A$21 million ($14 million) for every transaction Westpac failed to monitor adequately or report on time.”

How much is 23 million times $14 million?

• Australia’s Westpac Bank Slapped With 23 Million Money Laundering Breaches (R.)

Regulators accused Australia’s Westpac of 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering laws, saying the banking giant ignored red flags and for years enabled payments from convicted child sex offenders and “high risk” countries. The oversight failure at Australia’s second-largest bank led to deep systemic non-compliance with anti-money laundering laws, financial crime watchdog AUSTRAC said in a civil court filing on Wednesday. The regulator is pursuing fines of up to A$21 million ($14 million) for every transaction Westpac failed to monitor adequately or report on time.


The lawsuit dwarfs a case AUSTRAC brought against larger Commonwealth Bank of Australia which agreed last year here to pay a record A$700 million penalty after admitting to allowing 53,750 payments that violated similar protocols. It also brings fresh scrutiny to an industry still trying to rebuild community trust after a bruising Royal Commission public inquiry. “These contraventions are the result of systemic failures in its control environment, indifference by senior management and inadequate oversight by the Board,” AUSTRAC said in the court filing.

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In case you forgot Melzer represents the UN. When he speaks, the UN speaks. When he is ignored, the UN is ignored.

• UN Demands ‘Full Investigation’ After Sweden Drops Assange Rape Probe (RT)

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture has called for a “full investigation” into the role Sweden played in driving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into asylum and eventual custody, after the rape case against him was dropped. Swedish prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they would drop a dubious rape inquiry against Assange, as oral testimony against the publisher had “weakened,” and corroborating evidence was not strong enough to pursue a case. A Swedish arrest warrant was issued against assange in 2010, and a British court upheld a decision to extradite him in 2012. Threatened with what many saw as a politically motivated extradition, Assange sought refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.

“Today’s collapse of Sweden’s #Assange investigation was inevitable,” rapporteur Nils Melzer tweeted on Tuesday. “Given its gross arbitrariness, there must now be a full investigation, and accountability & compensation for the harm inflicted on #JulianAssange.” Melzer had previously claimed that Assange was subjected to “psychological torture” and had his due process rights “systematically violated” by the governments of Britain and Sweden. The WikiLeaks founder is still languishing in a maximum security unit at Belmarsh prison, awaiting a hearing on extradition to the US, where he potentially faces 175 years behind bars for publishing leaked military documents. In a document tweeted by Melzer, the envoy accuses Sweden of “actively and knowingly” contributing to Assange’s torture, and accuses prosecutors there of working in tandem with Britain’s Crown Prosecutorial Service to keep the case against Assange alive in the face of exculpatory evidence.

With the rape case against him dropped, some commentators have warned that the path to extradition to the US may now be clearer. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson told supporters that their focus should now shift to the most important “threat” that Assange was “warning about for years: the belligerent prosecution of the United States and the threat it poses to the First Amendment.”

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Not the strongest piece by George Szamuely. I like this tweet of his better:

“The Ukrainian people are fighting Russia over there, so we don’t have to fight Russia over here”–thus Tim Morrison. There’s definitely a lunatic asylum in which these sick individuals dwell. I guess it’s the US national security establishment.”

• Swedish Decision To Drop Rape Probe Comes Too Late To Help Assange (Szamuely)

The Swedish prosecutors’ decision to end the investigation of Julian Assange—for the third time—confirms that the sexual-misconduct accusations were always a cynical ploy to trap the publisher in a Kafkaesque legal proceeding. Swedish prosecutors today announced they were closing their nearly 10-year-old sexual-misconduct investigation of Julian Assange. The reason? The “evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.” However, the prosecutor tendentiously added, “the complaint was credible” but that corroborating evidence was not strong enough to pursue the case.

Let’s focus on the verbiage. Note first the use of the word “investigation.” This is very important, because contrary to what innumerable media outlets have reported during the past decade, the Swedes never charged Assange with anything, least of all “rape.” Following Assange’s arrest on April 11 of this year, there was a plethora of media stories informing us that there are outstanding rape charges pending against Assange in Sweden. Human Rights Watch chimed in, saying that Assange was facing a “rape charge” in Sweden. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party feminists urged the UK government to extradite Assange to Sweden to face “rape charges.”

The Swedish case was a fraud. The prosecutors’ goal all along was to use their powerful coercive tools in order to trap Assange within a slow-moving legal proceeding from which he would be unable to escape, while the US prepared its criminal charges against him. Sadly, despite today’s announcement, the Swedes’ mission has been accomplished.

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Chelsea rocks.

• Statement For Aaron Swartz Day 2019 (Chelsea Manning )

Good Evening Folks, I wish I could be there in person, but I appreciate this opportunity to summarize for you my letter to the court that ordered me to be confined, explaining why grand juries are so dangerous. I am not alone in objecting to the grand jury as a dangerous relic that has evolved in ways that increase its power without increasing its protections. I refuse to participate in a process that has clearly transformed into something that violates the spirit, if not the letter of the law. I am certainly not alone in thinking that the grand jury process, which at one time acted as an independent body of citizens along the lines of a civilian police review board, has slowly transitioned into an unbridled arm of the police and prosecution in ways that run contrary to its originally intended purpose.

Early grand juries acted independently, as investigations by citizens, ostensibly to protect citizens, not only from unjust indictments, but from unjust laws. In 2019, the federal grand jury exists as a mockery of the institution that once stood against the whims of monarchs. It guts the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantees of due process. Today’s grand juries do not safeguard such fundamental rights and are easily subject to abuse. The tradition of using grand juries to jail political dissidents and activists is long. The ability of grand juries to be abused or used for political ends is entrenched and perpetuated by the fact that jeopardy doesn’t attach with a grand jury, so prosecutors can repeatedly bring the same charges.

Despite laws that require prosecutors to show new evidence or that it is in the public interest to extend or reconvene a grand jury, this is hardly an obstacle. For instance, Thomas Jefferson had to convene three separate grand juries in order to indict Aaron Burr for sedition – but he was able to continue to convene those grand juries until he obtained his desired indictment. During the McCarthy era, when people were publicly interrogated about their beliefs and associations, the public was eventually outraged, and the McCarthy hearings are widely seen as a disgraceful episode of modern history. However, these kinds of interrogations have now returned, and happen routinely, under the modern grand jury system.

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Business as usual.

• Massive ‘Dark-Money’ Group Boosted Democrats In 2018 (Pol.)

The “green wave” of campaign cash that boosted Democrats and liberal causes in 2018 included an unprecedented gusher of secret money, new documents obtained by POLITICO show. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a little-known nonprofit headquartered in Washington, spent $141 million on more than 100 left-leaning causes during the midterm election year, according to a new tax filing from the group. The money contributed to efforts ranging from fighting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other Trump judicial nominees to boosting ballot measures raising the minimum wage and changing laws on voting and redistricting in numerous states. The spending was fueled by massive anonymous donations, including one gift totaling $51.7 million.

That single donation was more than the group had ever raised before in an entire year before President Donald Trump was elected. Most of the group’s funders are likely to remain a mystery because federal law does not require “social welfare”-focused nonprofits to reveal their donors. The group’s 2018 fundraising surpassed any amount ever raised by a left-leaning political nonprofit, according to experts, who pointed to the Koch network and the Crossroads network as rare right-leaning groups that posted bigger yearly fundraising totals at the height of their powers. The Sixteen Thirty Fund’s rise last year is a sign that Democrats and allies have embraced the methods of groups they decried as “dark money” earlier this decade, when they were under attack from the money machines built by conservatives including the Kochs.

“In terms of the size of dark money networks, there are only a few that have gone into the $100 million-plus range,” said Robert Maguire, the research director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and an expert in political nonprofits. “These kinds of totals aren’t unheard of,” Maguire added. “I do think they’re unheard of on the liberal side. I think that’s what’s so striking about this.”

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@RepMikeTurner : Did he ever say to you that he was not going to allow aid with the US to go to Ukraine unless there were investigations into Burisma, the Bidens or the 2016 election?

VOLKER: No he did not.

It’s open season on John Solomon. By the way, Marie Yovanovitch has denied the existence of a Don’t Prosecute list, and all kinds of people say Lutsenko denied it too. Solomon says he did not.

• Another Congresswoman Lashes Out At The Hill (Pol.)

Florida Congresswoman Val Demings questioned Tuesday whether the The Hill is “fair and unbiased” during an exchange with a reporter from the publication, the second of such incidents in recent days. California Rep. Jackie Speier, who is also a Democrat, told a Hill reporter on Friday that it was “reprehensible” that the paper published columns by John Solomon, a conservative journalist who helped ignite the Ukraine scandal and whose work has been promoted by President Donald Trump and his allies. Demings said Tuesday she had “not heard good things recently” about The Hill in response to tech policy reporter Emily Birnbaum identifying herself before asking a question about a short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, according to audio of the exchange reviewed by POLITICO.

“Recently, I have not heard good things about The Hill being fair and impartial and unbiased… and that concerns me because any story we’re telling needs to be fair and unbiased and impartial,” Demings told Birnbaum during the exchange in the speaker’s lobby, which was witnessed by other reporters. Demings answered Birnbaum’s question and agreed it was fair. Though Demings did not mention Solomon specifically, the former employee’s work has come under increasing scrutiny and has put The Hill under the media spotlight. ProPublica recently explored Solomon’s relationship with associates of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and CNN looked Monday night at the connection between The Hill’s owner, Jimmy Finkelstein, and Trump, Giuliani and Solomon.

Solomon’s work has come up several times during impeachment testimony. Former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on Friday denied an allegation from Ukraine’s former top prosecutor that she gave Ukraine’s then-top prosecutor a list of who not to prosecute. “Yovanovitch says John Solomon’s columns were used to push false allegations,” read a headline in The Hill. Solomon, who left The Hill in September and his now a contributor for Fox News, where he was a frequent guest this past year, has repeatedly defended his reporting. “I stand by each and every one of the columns that I wrote and that The Hill (both editors and lawyers) carefully vetted,” Solomon told POLITICO on Friday. “All facts in those stories are substantiated to original source documents and statements.”

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So the best thing Solomon can do is do his job: report.

• FBI Cites Strzok Cited For Misconduct, ‘Exceptionally Poor Judgment’ (Solomon)

This summer, ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok filed a lawsuit suggesting his firing was political retribution for having run the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation into the now debunked allegations that Donald Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election. The Justice Department has responded to the lawsuit in a big way, releasing to the court presiding over the civil case Strzok’s official misconduct file that concluded the former FBI supervisor exhibited “a gross lack of professionalism and exceptionally poor judgment.” It shows the FBI substantiated that Strzok had engaged in dereliction of duty, had committed misconduct through the expression of anti-Trump bias on his official FBI phone and committed security violations by performing official government work on personal email.

The records show one official recommended termination, and another recommended suspension for 60 days without pay. The bureau leadership chose the more severe of the two penalties, terminating Strzok last year. The dereliction of duty citation involved Strzok’s failure, according to the FBI, to quickly follow up in fall 2016 after the belated discovery of a trove of Hillary Clinton emails on a laptop belonging to former Congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Strzok was supervising the investigation of whether Clinton’s use of personal email for classified State Department matters created a security risk, and his failure caused an unnecessary delay to evaluate the new evidence just weeks before Election Day, the FBI concluded.

The disciplinary file included testimony from one of Strzok’s colleagues, a fellow agent, about the failure to respond to the discovery of emails. “The crickets I was hearing was making me uncomfortable because something was going to come crashing down,” the agent testified. “….I still to this day don’t understand what the hell went wrong.” The agent testified he feared “somebody was not acting appropriately, somebody was trying to bury this” discovery of new Clinton email evidence, the files show. Strzok offered a bevy of excuses for his inaction, including he was busy working the Trump-Russia case at the time. All were rejected. “The investigation reveals that there is no reasonable excuse for the FBI’s delay in following up on this matter,” the disciplinary file concluded.

Read more …

Why does Hong Kong still have courts?

• Beijing’s Angry Reaction To High Court Mask Ruling Sparks Concern (SCMP)

There was a swift response from Beijing when the High Court ruled on Monday that the Hong Kong government’s anti-mask law was unconstitutional. Central government officials criticised the court for failing to support the government in its efforts to end more than five months of increasingly violent social unrest. For the first time, they suggested that the city’s courts do not have the power to declare a local law invalid by checking it against the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution. China’s top legislative affairs body argued that only the national legislature had the right to decide on issues of constitutionality.


Beijing’s reaction left its critics in Hong Kong fearing for the erosion of the city’s independent judiciary. They also feared that Beijing would decide to hand down its own interpretation of the Basic Law and overturn the court ruling. But members of the pro-establishment camp dismissed those concerns, saying Beijing was only reiterating its position. What are the key issues in the controversy over the court ruling?

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Remember: Hong Kong won’t become Chinese until 2037.

• China Vows To Retaliate If Trump Signs Hong Kong Democracy Act Into Law (SCMP)

China summoned a senior United States diplomat on Wednesday as it warned it would retaliate if US President Donald Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law, after the act was passed by the US Senate. In a statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said Foreign Vice-Minister Ma Zhaoxu had summoned William Klein, the US embassy’s Minister Counsellor for Political Affairs. “China will take strong opposing measures, and the US has to bear all the consequences,” the statement said, after Congress’ upper chamber passed the act – which could pave the way for diplomatic action and economic sanctions against Hong Kong’s government.


It was the second time China had summoned a US diplomat since anti-government protests in Hong Kong began five months ago, triggered by a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed the transfer of criminal suspects to mainland China’s opaque legal system. In June, Robert Forden, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in Beijing, was summoned by Foreign Vice-Minister Le Yucheng. Klein was summoned after foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that any attempt by the US to interfere in China’s internal affairs would be in vain. “We call on the US side to take a clear look at the situation and take steps to stop the act from becoming a law, and stop meddling in the internal affairs of China and Hong Kong, to avoid setting a fire that would only burn itself,” Geng said in a statement. “If the US sticks to its course, China will surely take forceful measures to resolutely oppose it to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interest.”

Read more …

If the treatment of Assange shows you anything, it’s that you live in a fascist world.

• Reclaiming Your Inner Fascist (C.J. Hopkins)

OK, we need to talk about fascism. Not just any kind of fascism. A particularly insidious kind of fascism. No, not the fascism of the early 20th Century. Not Mussolini’s National Fascist Party. Not Hitler’s NSDAP. Not Francoist fascism or any other kind of organized fascist movement or party. Not even the dreaded Tiki-torch Nazis. It’s the other kind of fascism we need to talk about. The kind that doesn’t come goose-stepping up the street waving big neo-Nazi flags. The kind we don’t recognize when we’re looking right at it. It’s like that joke about the fish and the water … we don’t recognize it because we’re swimming in it. We’re surrounded by it. We are inseparable from it. From the moment we are born, we breathe it in.

We are taught it by our parents, who were taught it by their parents. We are taught it again by our teachers in school. It is reinforced on a daily basis at work, in conversations with friends, in our families and our romantic relationships. We imbibe it in books, movies, TV shows, advertisements, pop songs, the nightly news, in our cars, at the mall, the stadium, the opera … everywhere, because it is literally everywhere. It doesn’t look like fascism to us. Fascism only looks like fascism when you’re standing outside of it, or looking back at it. When you are in it, fascism just looks like “normality,” like “reality,” like “just the way it is.”

We (i.e., Americans, Brits, Europeans, and other citizens of the global capitalist empire) get up in the morning, go to work, shop, pay the interest on our debts, and otherwise obey the laws and conform to the mores of a system of power that has murdered countless millions of people in pursuit of global-hegemonic dominance. It has perpetrated numerous wars of aggression. Its military occupies most of the planet. Its Intelligence agencies (i.e., secret police) operate a worldwide surveillance apparatus that can identify, target, and eliminate anyone, anywhere, often by remote control. Its propaganda network never sleeps, nor is there any real way to escape its constant emotional and ideological conditioning.

The fact that the global capitalist empire does not call itself an empire, and instead calls itself “democracy,” doesn’t make it any less of an empire. The fact that it uses terms like “regime change” instead of “invasion” or “annexation” makes very little difference to its victims. Terms like “security,” “stability,” “intervention,” “regime change,” and so on are not meant for its victims. They are meant for us … to anesthetize us. The empire is “regime-changing” Bolivia currently. It has “regime-changed” most of Latin America at one time or another since the Second World War. It “regime-changed” Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Indonesia … the list goes on. It very much wants to “regime-change” Iran, which it “regime-changed” back in the 1950s, before the Iranians “regime-changed” it back. It would love to “regime-change” Russia and China, but their ICBMs make that somewhat impractical.

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Lip service.

• Fossil Fuel Production On Track For Double The Safe Climate Limit (G.)

The world’s nations are on track to produce more than twice as much coal, oil and gas as can be burned in 2030 while restricting rise in the global temperature to 1.5C, analysis shows. The report is the first to compare countries’ stated plans for fossil fuel extraction with the goals of the Paris climate agreement, which is to keep global heating well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and to aim for 1.5C. It exposes a huge gap, with fossil fuel production in 2030 heading for 50% more than is consistent with 2C, and 120% more than that for 1.5C. Scientists have warned that even the difference between 1.5C and 2C of heating will expose hundreds of millions of people to significantly higher risks of extreme heatwaves, drought, floods and poverty.

The report was produced by the UN Environment Programme and a coalition of research organisations. It complements an earlier UN analysis showing the current Paris agreement pledges to cut emissions would still lead to a catastrophic 3-4C rise. “We’re in a deep hole – and we need to stop digging,” said Måns Nilsson, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), which was part of the analysis. “Despite more than two decades of climate policymaking, fossil fuel production levels are higher than ever.” Most action to tackle the climate crisis involves reducing emissions, but Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme, said a focus on fossil fuel production was long overdue.

Most of the action pledges made by countries under the Paris deal do not even mention changes to production. The UK is a “striking” example of this mismatch, said Cleo Verkuijl, at the SEI’s centre in Oxford, UK. It was the first major economy to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, she said, but also subsidises fossil fuel production at home and abroad and intends to extract “every drop of oil and gas” from its North Sea fields.

Read more …

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 1 2019

Jun 012019
 
 June 1, 2019  Posted by at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


 

• Relentless and Unrestrained Public Mobbing, Intimidation and Defamation (CN)
• UN Special Rapporteur Calls for Julian Assange to Be Freed (DN)
• Assange ‘Psychologically Tortured To Breaking Point By Democratic States’ (RT)
• Are US/UK Trying To Kill Assange? – Ron Paul (DM)
• Assange May Have To Die Before Journalists Realize Implications – Galloway (RT)
• 36 Countries The US Has Bullied This Week (RT)
• Prelude to a Fiasco (Jim Kunstler)
• US Stock Market Forgoes $5 Trillion In Returns Due To Trade War – Deutsche (MW)
• Dow 25,000! Oops…(WS)
• Mexico Tariffs May Hurt $600 Billion In Cross-Border Trade, US Economy (MW)
• Brazil Snubs Venezuelan Opposition Envoy As Doubts Rise On Guaido (R.)

 

 

NOTE: quite a few video’s today, which don’t always show if you receive this by mail. In that case, please refer to the Automatic Earth site.

 

 

“I’ve seen atrocities in war areas that were physically more horrible but I’ve never seen a single person pursued so relentlessly and with so little foundation.”

• Relentless and Unrestrained Public Mobbing, Intimidation and Defamation (CN)

“It was obvious that Mr. Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years. Most importantly, in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.” “My most urgent concern is that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” said Melzer.

He said he was “particularly alarmed” by the Espionage Act charges. “This may well result in a life sentence without parole, or possibly even the death penalty, if further charges were to be added in the future,” said Melzer. “[Assange] is really something I’ve never seen in 20 years,” Melzer said. “I’ve seen atrocities in war areas that were physically more horrible but I’ve never seen a single person pursued so relentlessly and with so little foundation. “[When I saw him] I immediately compared him to some of the graver cases in interrogation prisons in terms of his psychological reaction patterns. That’s what alarmed me so much.” He said Assange’s treatment was “very close to the intentional, purposeful infliction of coercive measures to try to break him”.

He appeared “extremely agitated and preoccupied,” Melzer said. “He asked a lot of questions and he would jump around, he was so preoccupied with everything he can’t even compute my answers any more. “There were episodes of this, then he was part of the conversation as normal, then again he would enter into this agitated state. I have seen with other victims of psychological torture that would happen.” Melzer also blasted the government of Assange’s native Australia. He told the newspaper, “Australia is a glaring absence in this case. They’re just not around, as if Assange was not an Australian citizen. That is not the correct way of dealing with that.”

 

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Interesting man for sure. This part of his report stands out:

“I believe we have to take a step back and look at all these proceedings, how they have been conducted, and come to our own conclusions whether these are fair. We also have to take a step back and look at this whole narrative of suspected rapist; narcissist; selfish, ungrateful person; hacker, and scratch the surface a little bit and see what’s below there.


When I was first approached by his defense team seeking protection from my mandate in December last year, I was reluctant to do so, because, me, too, I had been affected by this prejudice that I had absorbed through all these public, you know, narratives spread in the media over the years. And only when I scratched the surface a little bit, I saw how little foundation there was to back this up and how much fabrication and manipulation there is in this case. So I encourage everybody to really look below the surface in this case.”

• UN Special Rapporteur Calls for Julian Assange to Be Freed (DN)

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture is warning that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is suffering from the effects of “psychological torture” due to his ongoing detention and threats of possible extradition to the United States. The U.N. expert, Nils Melzer, also warned that Assange would likely face a “politicized show trial” if he were to be extradited to the United States. Melzer writes, “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution, I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time.” Julian Assange is currently serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012 at London’s Belmarsh Prison, after he was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy by British police last month.


Last week, the U.S. Justice Department announced it was charging Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in publishing U.S. classified military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange, who had already been charged on one count of hacking a government computer, now faces up to 170 additional years in prison under the new charges—10 years for each count of violating the Espionage Act. Assange was due to appear by video link before a magistrates’ court on Thursday but failed to appear, reportedly due to health problems. We speak with U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer.

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Nils Melzer did a whole range of interviews in one day.

• Assange ‘Psychologically Tortured To Breaking Point By Democratic States’ (RT)

Jailed WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange shows clear signs of degrading and inhumane treatment which only adds to his deteriorating health, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer told RT. Assange has “all the symptoms typical for a person who has been exposed to prolonged psychological torture,” Melzer told RT’s Afshin Rattansi. This adds to the toll of his deteriorating physical state caused by a lack of adequate medical care for several years, he said. Melzer said he was judging from two decades of experience in working with POWs and political prisoners, and only after applying “scientific” UN methods to assess Assange’s condition. But the journalist’s case still “shocked” him.


An individual has been isolated and singled out by several democratic states, and persecuted systematically… to the point of breaking him. Earlier this month, a UK court sentenced the WikiLeaks co-founder to nearly a year in jail for skipping bail in 2012. The courts are now deciding whether to extradite Assange to the US where he is wanted for 17 charges under the Espionage Act. He can end up serving up to 175 years in prison if proven guilty.

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Me too, I thought of Warmbier: “..how would we look a lot different to the North Koreans on the surface?’

• Are US/UK Trying To Kill Assange? – Ron Paul (DM)

Former Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says Julian Assange could die in prison and blames the apparent deterioration in the WikiLeaks founder’s heath on how he is being treated by the US and UK governments. Speaking on ‘Ron Paul Liberty Report, the 83-year-old accuses the US government of pursuing Assange and says they would like to either challenge him with a death penalty or a life time in prison ‘for being a journalist.’ The Libertarian calls Assange’s a ‘tragic story’ and describes his health as ‘very very bad,’ commenting that friends of the whistleblower are worried that his health may not hold up. [..] Paul also compares Assange’s plight to the case of Otto Frederick Warmbier, an American college student imprisoned in North Korea in 2016.


In June 2017, Warmbier was released by North Korea in a vegetative state and died soon afterward. Paul goes on to ask what the ramifications would be if Assange is much sicker than is being revealed and dies in prison as the result of how his case has been handled by Washington and London. ‘If he had a terminal disease or something happens to him, good, bad, or whatever and he dies in the prison, how would we look a lot different to the North Koreans on the surface?’ Paul questions. Paul goes on to slam the American media and journalists for their lack of reporting on Assange’s health problems, adding that news of his ill health came out via a Swedish newspaper. Paul adds there is ‘not much good journalism around any more’ and that by not doing more reporting on Assange, journalists ‘don’t want to protect their right to be a journalist.’

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They still wouldn’t realize a thing.

• Assange May Have To Die Before Journalists Realize Implications – Galloway (RT)

“Julian Assange may have to die in the hospital wing of Belmarsh prison in order to bring it about” George Galloway believes it’s not long until ‘we could be in George Orwell’s 1984’ as he talks to In Question’s Manila Chan about the Wikileaks founder being too ill to appear at extradition hearing.

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The US will end up all alone.

• 36 Countries The US Has Bullied This Week (RT)


© Global Look Press / Uwe Skrzypczak

It’s been a busy few days for American diplomacy, with three dozen nations ending up at the receiving end of threats, ultimatums and sanctions this week alone. And it’s only Friday. Mexico is the latest target, slapped with 5 percent tariffs on each and every export, gradually increasing to 25 percent until it stops the flow of Latin American migrants into the US, thus fulfilling one of President Donald Trump’s election promises. Most of those migrants aren’t even from Mexico. On the other side of the world, India is reportedly about to be forced to face a choice: ditch the purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems or face sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA, Washington’s go-to cooperation enforcement instrument).

Turkey is facing a similar ultimatum: abandon S-400s (something Ankara has repeatedly refused to do) or lose access to the F-35 fighter jet program. This threat was repeated on Thursday by Kathryn Wheelbarger, US acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Ankara has already invested some $1.25 billion into the super-expensive American fighter, but with a lot of its parts being made in Turkey, it’s still an open question who would be the bigger loser. The entire European Union could be facing punishment if it tries to trade with Iran using its non-dollar humanitarian mechanism to bypass the American embargo. Having worked hard on the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, which has repeatedly been confirmed to be working, EU member states are not ready to ditch trade at Trump’s whim – and US Special Representative to Iran Brian Hook on Thursday reaffirmed the threat of CAATSA sanctions.

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”The object is solely to divert the nation’s attention with an impeachment circus, allowing Mr. Mueller to slip away harmlessly into history..”

• Prelude to a Fiasco (Jim Kunstler)

You’d think that Robert Mueller might know what any licensed attorney-at-law in the land tells a client in a tight spot with a lame alibi: better keep you mouth shut. Instead, Mr. Mueller crept Sphinx-like out of the Deep State woodwork on little cat’s paws and in a brief nine minutes blabbed out a set of whopperish riddles much more likely to get himself in trouble than the target of his hinky inquisition. The key whopper was that he could not make “a determination” on an obstruction-of-justice charge against Mr. Trump because guidance policy from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel had said some years ago that a sitting president can’t be indicted. That is not what he told his boss, Mr. Barr, the Attorney General (and a roomful of the AG’s staffers who heard it), in person when he delivered his final report a few weeks ago.

Upon receipt of that report, Mr. Barr asked the Special Counsel three times whether his inability to conclude anything on an obstruction charge was due to the OLC guidance, and three times Mr. Mueller answered “no.” Mr. Barr relayed this on-the-record in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and, as averred above, he has plenty of witnesses. It should not be hard to reach a determination on who is telling truth here. In fact, Mr. Mueller could have declared that he found chargeable obstruction crimes were committed based on the evidence, and also demurred to press them at this time — leaving them available to federal prosecutors until after the president was out of office, one way or another.

The reason he didn’t is that Mr. Mueller does not want the case to come to trial, ever, because he would lose badly and his reputation would be destroyed. Consider that in any trial, the defendant gets to call witnesses and make his own case. The evidence for gross prosecutorial misconduct on the part of Mr. Mueller and his associates is mountainous compared to the molehill of Mr. Trump’s temper tantrums over the seditious hoax he was subject to. And that matter is now moving in the direction of adjudication. So instead, Mr. Mueller has set in motion a potential political crisis as momentous as the Civil War, but completely unlike it.

Knowing that congress can impeach the president on just about anything — especially this president, publicly reviled like no other before him — he served congress the platter of material to use in the form of his final report, and pretty much dared them to not go forward with it. Get this: it is a ruse. The object is solely to divert the nation’s attention with an impeachment circus, allowing Mr. Mueller to slip away harmlessly into history without sacrificing his own reputation in a courtroom.

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We like big numbers.

• US Stock Market Forgoes $5 Trillion In Returns Due To Trade War – Deutsche (MW)

The U.S. stock market has left $5 trillion on the table as trade tensions over the past 17 months contributed to an effectively sideways trade, Deutsche Bank estimated on Friday. “While other factors also arguably played a role, the trade war has been key in preventing a recovery in global growth and keeping U.S. equities range bound. Foregone U.S. equity returns from price appreciation for 17 months are worth $5 trillion,” wrote Binky Chadha, the bank’s chief strategist, in a Friday note, based on an price appreciation at an annual rate 12.5% (see chart below).

Chadha’s calculation is based on the capitalization of the Russell 3000, a broad measure of equity markets, which had a capitalization of $28.7 trillion at the start of 2018. Foregone returns for the index over 17 months comes out to $5 trillion. The S&P 500 in the first four months of 2019 bounced back sharply from a steep fourth-quarter selloff nudging to an all-time closing high in April. But the index has retreated more than 6% in May, posting its first monthly decline since December and its worst May performance since 2010. The Dow Jones Industrial Average which failed to return to record territory before the May swoon, also fell more than 6% for the month.

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What $20 trillion in stimulus bought you.

• Dow 25,000! Oops…(WS)

Stocks were already gunning for the worst May since 2010 when, on the evening before the last trading day, Trump tweeted that he would impose tariffs on imports from Mexico, if Mexico doesn’t crack down on migration flows coming through its southern border. Those tariffs would hit the automakers particularly hard because they imported 2.6 million vehicles from Mexico in 2018, up 10% from the prior year. Not even counting the component makers. But the Presidential tweet was just the icing on the cake. May had been crappy for stocks before the tweet went out.


The S&P 500 index, which earlier this week had fallen through 2,800, dropped another 1.3% today to 2,752, down 6.8% from its peak in early May that had exceeded by a hair the prior peak of September 2018. The index is now back where it had first been on January 9, 2018, having spent nearly 17 months going nowhere, despite intoxicating surges and nerve-wracking drops. And the chart is morphing from “not pretty” to something a little uglier (data via S&P Dow Jones Indices):

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% today, unceremoniously plopping through the 25,000 level and closed at 24,815. It’s now 7.9% below its October 2018 peak and right back where it had first been in December 2017, having spent 17 months gyrating to nowhere, including a 19% peak-to-trough plunge in four months followed by a blistering 22% rally in four months. The Nasdaq composite dropped 1.5% today, to 7,453, the level it first reached in January 2018, also going nowhere in nearly 17 months despite a huge bout of volatility. It fell 8.7% in May. The Russell 2000 index, which covers stocks with smaller market capitalization, fell 1.3% today, to 1,478. It’s down 9.2% in May alone, down 15.7% from its October 2018 peak, and right back where it had first been on September 26, 2017, a very volatile 20 months of going nowhere. Chart looking ugly (data via Investing.com):

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This just might go horribly wrong.

• Mexico Tariffs May Hurt $600 Billion In Cross-Border Trade, US Economy (MW)

The U.S. economy could suffer a wrenching blow, business leaders and economists say, if President Trump follows through on his threat to slap tariffs on all imports from Mexico in a dispute over immigration controls. The president on Thursday said he would apply a 5% tariff on $350 billion in imports from Mexico unless the country reduces the flow of immigrants seeking to enter the United States. The surprise move slammed the stock market and prompted an immediate backlash from business. “These proposed tariffs would have devastating consequences,” said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. “Workers should not be forced to suffer because of the failure to fix our immigration system.”

Households could face higher prices for groceries and other key consumer staples, economists say. And businesses would have to pay more for key parts and materials, especially in the auto industry. “The duties represent a significant risk to business activity both north and south of the border,” said chief economist Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics. He said Mexico could be thrown into recession while U.S. growth could fall to 1% or less by 2020. The economies of the U.S. and Mexico have become inextricably intertwined in the quarter of a century since the North American Free Trade Agreement deal was signed in 1994. The two countries exchanged a whopping $612 billion in goods last year, making Mexico the third largest trading partner after Canada and China. More than $1.5 billion in products cross the border between the two countries every day.


Although Mexico is popularly known as the main U.S. source for avocados and tequila, the huge amount of products it sends to its northern neighbor each year touch almost every major segment of America’s economy. The U.S. imports enormous quantities of autos and parts, computer equipment, oil and gas, appliances and plastic and rubber products — not to mention fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, berries and melons. Mexican imports in 2018 hit a record $347 billion.

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Geez, is that still on?

• Brazil Snubs Venezuelan Opposition Envoy As Doubts Rise On Guaido (R.)

Brazil withdrew an invitation to the envoy for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido to present her diplomatic credentials, she said on Friday, and the government in Brasilia said it would decide later whether to accept them. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro still recognises Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, his spokesman said. Guaido’s envoy, Maria Teresa Belandria, played down the idea that the snub reflected scepticism from Bolsonaro’s government. Diplomatic analysts said mounting evidence that a change of government in Venezuela is not imminent may have Bolsonaro and his aides wondering if they overplayed their support for Guaido.


Former military officers making up about a third of Brazil’s cabinet have been wary of provoking Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, warning against moves that could tip an economic and political crisis into violence across Brazil’s northern border. Belandria had been invited to present her credentials at the presidential palace along with ambassadors from other countries next Tuesday, but the government changed its mind. “I was uninvited,” she told Reuters, but went on to dismiss any suggestion the snub reflected diminished support for Guaido. “There will be another opportunity,” she said. “Brazil’s support continues to be strong, solid and decisive. It’s merely a protocol matter.”

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Julian on Google

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 28 2018

Dec 282018
 
 December 28, 2018  Posted by at 10:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Berthe Morisot After luncheon1881

 

• Investors Fear Historic Market Rebound Was Just A ‘Wicked Bear Trap’ (MW)
• US Stocks Follow Record-Breaking Rise With Day Of Wild Swings (G.)
• VIX Is About To Do Something It Hasn’t Done Since 2011 (MW)
• Watch Out When Men Of War Come To The Rescue (Fisk)
• Giuliani: Mueller Must Be Investigated For Destruction Of FBI Evidence (Hill)
• Donald Trump ‘Worst Perpetrator’ Of Fake News: UN Special Rapporteur (Pol.eu)
• Macron ‘Lost Authority’ After Caving To Yellow Jackets, Says Oettinger (Pol.eu)
• Corbyn Wants May To Recall MPs Early Over Critical Brexit Vote (Ind.)
• Brexit’s Aura Of Inevitability Is Vanishing (Kaletsky)
• Turning Brexit Into a Celebration of Democracy (Varoufakis)
• Crime and Punishment in an Age of the Jungle (Vallianatos)

 

 

Catchy, but A Christmas Carol might be a better example. ‘Investors’ believe the ghosts are real, just like they believe markets are real. Read yesterday’s 2019: Zombie Markets Before The Fall to understand why that is nonsense.

• Investors Are Speechless: “It’s Like Watching Pulp Fiction” (ZH)

With market action becoming increasingly surreal and the panicked, vertigo-inducing bear market rallies (spawned by a record $64 billion pension fund reallocation into stocks in a historically illiquid market) reminiscent of the chaos observed at the depths of the financial crisis, it is only appropriate that some of the quotes Bloomberg picked for its daily wrap piece which commemorated the biggest intraday reversal since 2010, be just as surreal. “Investors are becoming desensitized,” Bryce Doty, SVP at Sit Investment Associates, told Bloomberg, then continued the verbal poetry: “It’s like watching ‘Pulp Fiction.’ Halfway through, the violence doesn’t even bother you anymore.”

He’s right, although whereas the market “violence” in past weeks was one directional, this week it has developed a twist to trap both the bulls and bears, and while the latest Dow swing (of nearly 1000 points) was only slightly bigger than the average up-and-down move last week, back then equities were merely tumbling, now it tends to drop early in the day then soar in afternoon trading. So fast forwarding to the post-Christmas chaos – which this website explicitly warned about when last Friday we said to “Brace For Seismic Volatility” – strategists are starting to ask: if days like these are now normal, is there a context in which the whole three-month rout starts to feel routine?

There are the optimists like Jim Kelleher, director of research at Argus Research, who said market turmoil that happens when the economy is holding up reminds him of past stock declines that ended gently. Unless evidence emerges of deep global growth erosion, what’s going on now “will prove to be shorter and more shallow than the declines experienced in ‘classic’ bear markets.” Others are not so sure: “Investors are wondering if this will be a crash,” said Dave Campbell, a principal at San Francisco’s BOS, who nonetheless still managed to put a favorable spin on events.

“The risks are there, but they’re always there. They’re more heightened but it’s not the most likely outcome. The economy continues to grow – maybe a little more slowly – but next year markets will have hit their lows and we’ll be on the rebound.” Then there are those who echo what we asked yesterday, namely if this is only a bear market rally, although granted a very furious one: as Bloomberg writes in its second end of day wrap, “on the surface, the rally is good news for investors searching for a bottom after a three-month sell-off sent the S&P 500 to the brink of a bear market. But days like this are rarely good omens.”

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What’s happening is much more profound than bear markets.

• Investors Fear Historic Market Rebound Was Just A ‘Wicked Bear Trap’ (MW)

It’s been a rough three months, and a particularly difficult December, for stocks, however. The Nasdaq is in a bear market while the Dow and S&P 500 are solidly in correction territory and nursing hefty December losses and year-to-date declines. Some market watchers find big bounces in such an environment less than convincing. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, offered up the table below in a Thursday note. It takes a look back at the 20 biggest one-day percentage gains for the S&P 500 going back to 1970, a stretch that includes nearly 12,800 trading days.

[..] Bulls can take encouragement from the fact that three of the 17 other days that saw an advance of 5% or more came immediately in the aftermath of the October 1987 crash, “when buying did prove a good plan,” while two more came in March 2009, when the S&P 500 hit bottom and began its current bull run. But here’s the rub: Eight of those gains of 5% or more came during the 2007-09 bear market and three more occurred during the downturn of 2000-03, “to suggest there is still a risk that this year’s Boxing Day bonanza could be no more than a wicked bear trap set to lure investors into more trouble,” Mould wrote ahead of Thursday’s open, saying that traders and investors “will be looking out for a couple of further definitive signals before they decide it really is time to buy on the dips following this year’s Christmas selloff.”

Indeed, market veterans warn that massive, one-day rallies are often more characteristic of downturns, occurring as selloffs lead to significantly oversold technical conditions that leave markets ripe for short covering only to give way to renewed selling once the frenzy of forced buying is exhausted. Investors who short a stock are essentially betting that its price will fall by first borrowing the shares, but those traders can be forced to buy shares back if prices suddenly swing higher, which, in turn, can amplify price swings.

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When is all this cheap money going to bail out?

• US Stocks Follow Record-Breaking Rise With Day Of Wild Swings (G.)

US stock markets seesawed again on Thursday as a record-breaking day of gains gave way to selling once again before rising again in late trading. By lunchtime all the major US markets were in the red, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1.4%, the S&P 500 losing 1.5% and the Nasdaq off 1.9%. But most US markets ended the day in the black with the Dow up 1.13%, the S&P adding 0.85% and the Nasdaq 0.38%. After a series of often wild swings the US stock markets are still on course to end the year in bear market territory – triggered when markets fall 20% from their most recent high. A bear market would be the first in close to a decade.

Michael Antonelli, managing director, institutional sales trading at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee, said he expected more dramatic days aheads. “There’s only two more sessions left before the end of the year. I would expect volatility to reign. It’s dug in like a tick,” he said. Stocks had fallen for four consecutive days through Monday. Wednesday’s rally – with the Dow adding close to 5% and a record 1,080 points – could have signaled a turning point. Markets closed up in Japan and Australia but European markets sank again on Thursday, with the FTSE closing down 1.5% in London, sinking to it’s lowest level since July 2016 (a month after the Brexit vote). Germany’s DAX closed down 2.3% and France’s CAC fell 0.6%

Stock markets have become increasingly volatile in recent months and recorded both record losses and record gains this week. The Dow Jones plummeted 653 points on Monday, capping its worst week in a decade and marking its “worst day of Christmas Eve trading ever”.

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The low VIX shows you how out of touch the financial world is. There can be only one reason for it: the Fed.

• VIX Is About To Do Something It Hasn’t Done Since 2011 (MW)

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone paying attention that stock-market volatility is on the rise. But here’s a statistic that underlines the phenomenon. The Cboe Volatility Index, commonly known as the VIX and often, if not sometimes derisively, referred to as Wall Street’s fear gauge, was on track Thursday to close above 30 for the fourth day in a row. The index, an options-based measure of expected volatility over the coming 30-day period, traded at 32.92 in recent action, up 2.51 points. According to data compiled by Dow Jones Market Data, that would be the longest streak since a 14-day run that ended in November 2011, surpassing a three-day period seen in August 2015. The index has a long-term average near 20.

It’s certainly been a week of whipsaw trading for investors. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite all falling more than 2% in Monday’s holiday-abbreviated session to post the worst Christmas Eve performance in Wall Street history, only to roar back on Wednesday to more than reverse those declines as the S&P and Dow jumped 5% each and the Nasdaq gained 5.8%. On Thursday, stocks were back under pressure, with the Dow giving up more than half of the previous day’s 1,086-point gain.

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Robert Fisk is done. Comparing Putin to Hitler on the brink of 2019 is all we need to know. BTW, Mattis DID consider running.

• Watch Out When Men Of War Come To The Rescue (Fisk)

When a general popularly known as James “Mad Dog” Mattis abandons a really mad American president, you know something has fallen off the edge in Washington. Since the Roman empire, formerly loyal military chiefs have fled crackpot leaders, and Mattis’s retreat from the White House might have the smell of de Gaulle and Petain about it. De Gaulle was confronted by an immensely powerful hero of the people – the Lion of Verdun – who was, in his dotage, about to shrug off the sacred alliance with Britain for Nazi collaboration (for which, I suppose, read Putin’s Russia). The decision was made to have nothing to do with Petain, or what Mattis now refers to as “malign actors”. De Gaulle would lead Free France instead.

Mattis has no such ambitions – not yet, at any rate – although there are plenty of Lavals and Weygands waiting to see if Trump chooses one of them for his next secretary of defence. Besides, history should not grant Trump and Mattis such an epic panorama. After all, no Trump tweet could compare with Petain’s 1916 “We’ll get them!” (“on les aura”) slogan, and the dignified, cold and fastidious de Gaulle would never have lent himself to the rant Mattis embarked upon in San Diego in 2005: “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.”

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If investigations like this are not held, the US risks becoming a very volatile place.

• Giuliani: Mueller Must Be Investigated For Destruction Of FBI Evidence (Hill)

Rudy Giuliani has an unmistakable New Year’s message for special counsel Robert Mueller: It is time for the chief investigator in the Russia case to be investigated in 2019. In wide-ranging interviews with Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and me on Wednesday and Thursday, President Trump’s defense lawyer pointedly accused Mueller’s office of destroying evidence by allowing text messages from now-fired FBI official Peter Strzok and his FBI lover, Lisa Page, to be erased in the Russia probe. “Mueller should be investigated for destruction of evidence for allowing those text messages from Strzok to be erased, messages that would show the state of mind and tactics of his lead anti-Trump FBI agent at the start of his probe,” Giuliani said.

The Justice Department inspector general (IG) reported this month that it found large gaps in the preservation of official government text messages between Strzok and Page, the two top FBI agents who helped to start the Russia probe in 2016, who were having an affair at the time, and who expressed disdain for Trump. The report said a technical glitch was to blame for the FBI’s failure to save those text messages, but the IG was able to recover more than 19,000 from the early part of the Russia probe before Mueller was named special prosecutor. However, the IG said it was unable to recover messages from the time Strzok and Page worked for Mueller’s office in spring and summer 2017 because the memories of both FBI officials’ government phones were wiped clean by technicians.

That erasure occurred after Strzok and Page left Mueller’s team over revelations they exchanged anti-Trump text messages, including one string in which they talked about stopping Trump from becoming president. “That should be investigated, damn it, that should be investigated fully. You want a special counsel, get one for that,” Giuliani said.

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Really? The UN is going to pick sides? Against Trump and pro Big Tech?

• Donald Trump ‘Worst Perpetrator’ Of Fake News: UN Special Rapporteur (Pol.eu)

The President of the United States is the “worst” perpetrator of misinformation on the internet, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion David Kaye said in an interview published today. “Governments are real offenders when it comes to disinformation,” said Kaye. “In my own country, the United States, the worst perpetrator of false information is the President of the United States.” The problem of fake news emanating from governments should be covered by journalists, the rapporteur said. Platforms such as Google, Facebook or Twitter can help the broader fight against disinformation — bots, foreign interference… — but should not remove content, Kaye said.

“The platforms, I think, can do things that are more technical as long as they are not evaluating content. There are things they can do. They can’t just zap it and say, “This is fake news, it’s off the platform.” According to Kaye, platforms should focus on reducing spam and bot accounts rather than on policing content. And even bots are “tricky, because there are good bots and bad bots.” Google, Facebook and Twitter are under intense pressure from the European Commission to tackle fake news ahead of the European election in May 2019.

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When did the Yellow Vests become an insect species?

• Macron Lost Authority After Caving To Yellow Jackets – EU’s Oettinger (Pol.eu)

The EU will accept a French budget deficit above the EU’s 3 percent ceiling in 2018 “as a one-time exception,” Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger said in an interview published Thursday. Oettinger told the Funke media group of German newspapers that French President Emmanuel Macron had “lost authority with his budget for 2019” by upping his spending in response to the Yellow Jackets protests, “but he remains a strong supporter of the European Union.” Brussels reviewed the French budget several weeks ago and won’t be revisiting it, Oettinger added. “It crucial now that Macron continues his reform agenda, especially in the labor market, and that France remains on its growth track.”

“Under this condition, we will tolerate a national debt higher than 3 percent as a one-time exception. However, it must not continue beyond 2019.” Oettinger also told the Funke media group that there’s still a chance Britain’s parliament will vote in favor of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal in January and that “there is certainly no majority for a disorderly Brexit or for a new referendum.” If the U.K. leaves the bloc without a Brexit deal, it will become “a third country like Morocco or Azerbaijan,” Oettinger said. He added that if Britain withholds its divorce payment in 2019, Germany would be left footing the bill “in the mid-three-digit range” of hundreds of millions of euros.

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The sudden urgency is too late.

• Corbyn Wants May To Recall MPs Early Over Critical Brexit Vote (Ind.)

Jeremy Corbyn has challenged Theresa May to cut short the Christmas recess and recall parliament early in the new year in order to bring forward a critical vote on the Brexit deal. In an interview with The Independent, the Labour leader said he believed the prime minister and her allies were engaged in a “cynical manoeuvre” to run down the clock and offer MPs the “choice of the devil or the deep blue sea”. His remarks come as the Commons prepares to vote on the UK-EU deal in the week beginning 14 January – in what is being billed as the most significant moment in parliament for a generation.

With just 91 days remaining until Britain formally leaves the European Union, Mr Corbyn also reiterated it is a matter of “when, not if” Labour attempts to force a general election by tabling a motion of no confidence in the government, which he signalled will come in the aftermath of Ms May’s deal failing to receive MPs’ backing. But he refused to be drawn on whether a Labour government would seek to extend Article 50, given that just weeks would remain for any renegotiation of Britain’s exit from the bloc, and claimed: “Lots of things are possible, the EU has longform on reopening and extending negotiations, but let’s not jump too many hoops when we haven’t arrived at them.”

Speaking in his constituency office in Islington, north London, ahead of Christmas Day, he poured scorn on the prime minister’s decision earlier this month to pull a vote on the deal in the face of near-certain defeat and instead begin a last-ditch attempt to seek assurances from the EU to assuage Brexiteers’ concerns over the contentious issue of the Irish backstop. Pressed on whether he believed Ms May should now recall parliament a week early, on 2 January, the Labour leader replied: “Well it is in her hands to recall parliament. I want us to have a vote as soon as possible, that’s what I’ve been saying for the past two weeks, and if that means recalling parliament to have the vote let’s have it.

“But it looks to me the government has once again reneged on that and tried to put it back another week. We need to have that vote so a decision of parliament can be made. What I suspect is that it’s a completely cynical manoeuvre to run down the clock and offer MPs the choice of the devil or the deep blue sea.”

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For some, perhaps.

• Brexit’s Aura Of Inevitability Is Vanishing (Kaletsky)

In times of political turmoil, events can move from impossible to inevitable without even passing through improbable. In early 2016, the idea of Britain leaving the European Union seemed almost as absurd as the next American president being the six-time bankrupt and serial sex pest Donald Trump. A few months later, Brexit and the Trump presidency were universally acknowledged as the inevitable consequence of an anti-elitist, anti-globalization backlash that was predictable decades ago. This sense of inevitability, far more than genuine anti-European conviction, is what has discouraged Britain from changing its mind about a pointless and self-destructive policy that few voters cared about until 2016.

The message from post-Brexit polling and focus groups has been: “We all know that Brexit has to happen, so why don’t the politicians just get on with it?” But with the Brexit process now moving toward its climax, another outcome is moving from impossible to inevitable: Britain could soon change its mind and decide to stay in the EU. This reversal of fortune could begin next month, when Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to lose the decisive parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal. If and when this defeat happens, May will face two unpalatable options. She could preside over a “No Deal” rupture with Europe — tantamount to a declaration of economic war against the EU — and risk a 2008-level economic crisis accompanied by a border upheaval in Ireland that could reignite the “Troubles.”

Or she could break her extravagant promises to honor the “people’s instruction” from the 2016 referendum and allow a new popular vote that might cancel Brexit. To avoid this invidious choice, May could try one last time to push her proposals through Parliament after losing the vote scheduled for the week of January 14. But if this last-ditch effort fails, her choices will be reduced to a No Deal rupture with Europe and a new referendum.

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Varoufakis is basically right, but I can’t see a three-year People’s Debate tackling 6 issues. Brits will think: we can’t even deal with one issue. And an extension of a transition period until 2022 is hard to see, too.

• Turning Brexit Into a Celebration of Democracy (Varoufakis)

With weeks left before the UK leaves the EU by default, none of the three main options on offer – a no-deal Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, and rescinding Article 50 in order to remain in the EU – commands a majority in Parliament or among the population. Each generates maximum discontent: The no-deal scenario strikes most as a dangerous plunge into the unknown. May’s deal appalls Remainers and is seen by most Leavers as the kind of document only a country defeated at war would sign. Lastly, a Brexit reversal would confirm Leavers’ belief that democracy is allowed only when it yields results favored by the London establishment.

The conventional wisdom in Britain is that this impasse is lamentable, and that it proves the failure of British democracy. I disagree on both counts. If any of the three immediately available options were endorsed, say, in a second referendum, discontent would increase and the larger questions plaguing the UK would remain unanswered. Britons’ reluctance to endorse any Brexit option at present is, from this perspective, a sign of collective wisdom and a rare opportunity to come to terms with the country’s great challenges while re-thinking the UK’s relationship with the EU. But to seize it, the UK must invest in a “People’s Debate,” leading, in time, to a “People’s Decision.”

The People’s Debate must address six issues: the British constitution, including the creation of an English parliament or multiple regional English assemblies; the electoral system and the role of referenda; the Irish question, including the possibility of joint UK-Irish sovereignty over Northern Ireland; migration and freedom of movement; Britain’s economic model, particularly the outsize role of finance and the need to boost green investment across the country; and of course the UK-EU relationship.

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Proudly poisoning your food for 100 years.

• Crime and Punishment in an Age of the Jungle (Vallianatos)

[..] studies funded by EPA and others have been connecting farmers’ sprays to ecocide, disease and death. I traced the catastrophic decline of honeybees to the neurotoxic pesticides of the farmers. This brought me in touch with a caring beekeeper from Colorado named Tom Theobald. He was telling me his days as a beekeeper were coming to an end. In December 2018, he summarized 44 years of living with honeybees and the poisoners of honeybees. “Almost every problem we face,” he said, “can be traced to a Criminal Corporatism and an out of control Capitalism. If there is a profit to be made, there is little regard paid to the consequences. If challenged, we get denial, diversion, excuses and junk science. It simply doesn’t matter how many people are sickened or die, how many species are pushed to extinction or how seriously the planet is compromised.”

[..] We are fortunate we have a reliable history of that irresponsible age by Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT. A prolific and outstanding writer, Blum is telling a story that illuminates both early twentieth century, but, perversely, our own times. Her timely book, The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Penguin Press, 2018) paints an unforgettable picture of an American table full of “adulterated” food. Milk and meat were routinely treated with formaldehyde, a carcinogen used for embalming of corpses. Wine drinkers drank a liquid that had nothing to do with grapes. Wine was made from “tannin and coal tar.”

The poisonous copper sulphate dressed canned vegetables. The cleaning chemical borax coated butter. Honey had nothing to do with real honey. It was rather a version of “thickened, colored corn syrup.” Coffee was usually “sawdust, or wheat, beans, peas and dandelion seeds, scorched black and ground to resemble the genuine article.” Bread was baked with alum or chalk, or “sawdust chopped up very fine or gypsum in powder… Terra alba just out of the mine.” There was no law against the poisonous adulteration of food and drink. However, the adulteration of food, Blum says, gave sickness and death, potentially to huge number of Americans. Tainted milk alone killed thousands of children in New York City every year.

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