Feb 022024
 
 February 2, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Winslow Homer Mending the nets 1881

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson First Floor Speech On Border Catastrophe (Kanekoa)
It’s Biden vs. Texas, and Texas Is Right. (McMaken)
Israel Accepts Ceasefire Deal – Al Jazeera (RT)
US Created Ukraine Conflict to Keep Europe ‘Under Its Thumb’ (Sp.)
EU Leaders Agree to Give $54Bln in Macro-Financial Assistance to Ukraine (Sp.)
Zelensky Wants Zaluzhny Out Over Effort At Ceasefire With Russia – Hersh (Sp.)
Zelensky To Fire Top General This Week – CNN (RT)
Zelensky’s Generals Refuse To Accept Firing Top Commander – Bild (RT)
Biden Makes Clear Case for NATO Complicity Over IL-76 Shoot-Down (SCF)
Ukraine’s ‘Failed State’ Status (DeMartino)
Mass European Farmer Protests Blowback for Ukraine Support (Sp.)
CIA Staffer Sentenced To 40 Years For Leaking US Hacking Secrets (RT)
Roger Waters Faces Axe by Record Label Over Defiant Israel Stance (Sp.)
UK High Court Throws Out Trump’s Christopher Steele Case (BBC)
Interesting – Elon Musk (Kanekoa)

 

 

 

 

Meme team
https://twitter.com/i/status/1753078612243423563

 

 

 

 

Jan 6

 

 

Tucker Bret

 

 

KJP Boeing

 

 

Scott Ritter: Turkey & Russia JOIN WAR

 

 

Macgregor: Iran must pay

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Just as we lock our doors at night to protect our homes, we secure our borders to protect our homeland. And my friends, that is our sacred obligation.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson First Floor Speech On Border Catastrophe (Kanekoa)

House Speaker Mike Johnson delivers first floor speech on border catastrophe, accusing President Biden of intentionally creating a “clear and present danger to our national security.” “Since I was elected Speaker less than 100 days ago, more than 700,000 illegals have been welcomed into our country illegally by the Biden administration. American schoolchildren have been forced into virtual schools so migrants can sleep in their school buildings. Korean War veterans have been booted from nursing homes that were sold to house migrants. Our streets are being flooded with fentanyl. Hundreds of thousands of children and adults are being poisoned and losing their lives. Vulnerable children and women are being exploited and trafficked by cartels. Since President Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas assumed office, there have been more than 7 million encounters with illegal aliens just at our southern border alone.

35 of our 50 states, including my home state of Louisiana, don’t have a population that large. More than 300 individuals who are on our terror watchlist have been apprehended on the southern border. The frightening question is, how many have entered undetected? We know there are at least 1.8 million gotaways that have escaped. Understand that the situation at our border presents a clear and present danger to our national security, and it demands that it be addressed. FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Homeland Security Committee in November that these gotaways are a great concern for the agency, and all 56 of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces are trying to identify who these people are. We don’t know how many terrorists are inside our borders. We do know that fentanyl is pouring into our communities like an open sewer. Right now, the leading cause of death in America for Americans aged 18 to 46 is fentanyl poisoning.

To make matters worse, we’ve learned that the Biden administration is now simply just releasing 85% of the illegals who come across that border right into the country. For reference, by the way, in 2013, the Obama administration detained 82% of illegal aliens. How do we go from detaining 82% to releasing 85%? It only happens if this is by design. It only happens if it’s an orchestrated intentional effort by the administration to do exactly that, and that is what the evidence shows. Earlier this month, I released a memo documenting 64 specific actions that the Biden administration has taken to undermine our border security and to promote the mass release of illegals and dangerous persons into our country. The very first day President Biden walked into the Oval Office, he revoked Executive Order 9844. Do you know what that did? It ended the construction of the border wall that Congress had already paid for. Everybody has seen the images of the materials out there rotting in the sun. Why?

Because Joe Biden decided unilaterally that he didn’t want a wall. In February 2021, the administration stopped applying Title 42 expulsions to children and incentivize by doing that incentivize families to send unaccompanied children through Mexico under the watch of cartels and traffickers. Since then, the administration admits to losing track of more than 80,000 unaccompanied children somewhere in the US. We don’t know where they are. Have they been put into trafficking rings? We know that some of these kids are being trafficked for free labor and being forced to do things that are too appalling for us to articulate on this floor. Everybody here knows that’s happening, and we’re not demanding the President stop it? He can. He has the power to do it.

[..] We have to decide if we believe in the rule of law or not. We have to decide if we’re a sovereign nation or we’re not. I believe that border security is part of our solemn obligation to safeguard the well-being of our citizens and uphold the principles that define who we are as a nation. A weak border weakens America, and a strong border is good for America, and a stronger America is good for everybody around the world. And everybody in this chamber should acknowledge that. Just as we lock our doors at night to protect our homes, we secure our borders to protect our homeland. And my friends, that is our sacred obligation.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1753202850023498016

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“..what is self-evident here is that it is up to the state government to determine for itself whether or not the state is being invaded..”

It’s Biden vs. Texas, and Texas Is Right. (McMaken)

So, what exactly does the Texas governor’s declaration say? Overall, it makes the case that the Biden administration has been ignoring federal immigration laws and illegally withdrawing border-control operations from the Texas-Mexico border. Abbott concludes: “Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United States.” If that were all, we’d just chalk this up to a document that amounts to little more than a letter to the editor. But then Abbott says that the US Constitution provides a remedy for the situation:

“..the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” The final paragraph is where it gets interesting. Abbott writes: “The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”

Abbott is essentially saying that federal supremacy in this case has been rendered null and void by a federal refusal to enforce federal law. Can he get away with it? For clarity, let’s look at Article 1, section 10. It reads: “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” The key phrase here is “unless actually invaded.” Whether or not the current flood of migrants across the border constitutes “invasion,” as stated here, is perhaps debatable.

However, what is self-evident here is that it is up to the state government to determine for itself whether or not the state is being invaded. After all, the whole point of the section is to grant certain powers to states outside the authority of the federal government. If the federal government also gets to determine for itself whether or not the state is being invaded, then the section is pointless. So, an honest reading of this text ought to preclude the Biden administration or US Supreme Court coming back and saying “you’re not being invaded, now do what we say.”

Abbott
https://twitter.com/i/status/1753160896312995917

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Wait and see.

Israel Accepts Ceasefire Deal – Al Jazeera (RT)

Israel has agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would halt its war with Hamas, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday, citing the Qatari Foreign Ministry. Hamas has reportedly given the plan a “positive” response. The ceasefire plan was hashed out in Paris over the weekend, with Qatari and Egyptian diplomats mediating between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. Delegations from West Jerusalem and Gaza left the French capital promising to study the proposal and negotiate further this week, and by Thursday evening, a deal was apparently within reach. “Israel agreed to the ceasefire proposal and we have initial positive confirmation from Hamas,” a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Thursday evening, according to Al Jazeera. “We are awaiting their response,” the spokesman added.

The proposed ceasefire will be implemented in three stages, according to a Hamas statement shared with Reuters earlier this week. The first phase would see fighting stop for 40 days as Hamas hands over the female civilians, children, and elderly people it is still holding captive. During this time, large-scale deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza would resume. The following stages would see Hamas turn over captive Israeli soldiers and the bodies of Israeli troops, in exchange for further aid deliveries and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. “Military operations on both sides will stop during the three stages,” the militants said, adding that the number of Palestinian prisoners freed would be open to negotiation.

The proposal falls short of the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that Hamas initially demanded. As a step toward ending the war, however, it also threatens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to keep fighting until Israel achieves “total victory” over the militants, as he has promised on multiple occasions. While hardliners within Netanyahu’s cabinet have pressed him to reject any deal they view as too lenient towards Hamas, Israel has faced international condemnation over its conduct in Gaza, and two of the Jewish state’s most stalwart backers – the US and UK – suggested this week that they could soon recognize an independent Palestinian state. Such an outcome would be a political disaster for Netanyahu, who angered Washington and London last month when he outright rejected a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking roughly 240 as hostages. Israel responded by imposing a siege on Gaza and launching waves of airstrikes on the densely-populated enclave. A ground operation followed three weeks later, and after almost four months of fighting, more than 27,000 Palestinians have died, two thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

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“..European countries are “going down faster than we can even imagine..”

“..we were concerned about their economy moving up because they were getting cheap Russian energy..”

US Created Ukraine Conflict to Keep Europe ‘Under Its Thumb’ (Sp.)

On Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban relented to pressure from the EU and finally allowed €50 billion in military and financial aid to be transferred to Ukraine after blocking the funding for more than a month. The funds are ostensibly planned to fund Ukraine until 2027 and came as US aid remains stalled in Congress. Before the latest aid package was approved by the EU, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg remarked at a Monday news conference in Washington, DC, that “weapons are – in fact – the way to peace [in Ukraine],” but that’s not quite the case, an analyst told Sputnik. Dr. David Oualaalou told Sputnik’s Critical Hour on Wednesday that Stoltenberg’s assertion “defies logic” and asserted that Ukraine is already “gone.” Oualaalou argued that Europe was pushed into supporting Ukraine by the US, which is not “paying the price” of that support in the same way Europe is.

He added that the economic situation in Europe, largely brought on by the consequences of their support of Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, makes the continent reliant on the US. “[The US] created the conflict to ensure that Europe will stay under [its] thumb by dictating the terms and complicating matters for them,” Oualaalou explained. “One way you do that, [is] you complicate the economic outcome for an entity, doesn’t matter who, that’s how you do it.” He added that his family members in Europe acknowledge that European countries are “going down faster than we can even imagine,” and pointed to the farmer and worker protests breaking out across the continent. Complicating matters further, Oualaalou argued, is that even with monetary aid being sent to Ukraine, Europe is too short on ammunition to give Ukraine much that will help them on the battlefield.

“I hope your listeners know that the UK cannot fight the Houthis, for example,” Oualaalou said, referring to the growing conflict in the Red Sea. “The reason? They don’t have firepower, they don’t have enough. That is why they are just riding with the US.” Oualaalou also argued that even the US and UK combined will not be able to defeat the Houthis. “We couldn’t defeat the Taliban, we couldn’t defeat the militias in Iraq. What makes us think we’re going to defeat the Houthis? And the Houthis, to my knowledge, and I’ve been on the ground, I was there. They are fierce fighters.” Co-host Garland Nixon suggested that the real goal in funding Ukraine was to line politicians’ “filthy pockets” with money, an assertion Oualaalou agreed with. But he also reiterated that it is also part of the US geopolitical strategy.

“[The] Ukraine conflict was created by design for us to keep the Europeans down because we were concerned about their economy moving up because they were getting cheap Russian energy – that’s what’s at the heart of it,” he said. Asked about the narrative and media attention shifting from Ukraine to the Middle East, even as the conflict continues, Oualaalou admitted that it’s simply part of the larger plan, and that there could be more on the horizon. “That’s usually how the narrative goes because that is the aim – you move from one conflict to the next one because you’re already preparing [for] the next conflict. … what I see on the horizon, is what’s going on too, in Asia,” he explained. “It [has] become clear in the West that Ukraine is a failed state. The objective has been accomplished. Let’s move to the next conflict. And once that’s settled, we’re going to move to a third one and so forth.”

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To achieve what?

EU Leaders Agree to Give $54Bln in Macro-Financial Assistance to Ukraine (Sp.)

The EU leaders have reached an agreement on allocating 50 billion euros ($54 billion) as part of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, European Council President Charles Michel said on Thursday. “All 27 leaders agreed on an additional €50 billion support package for Ukraine within the EU budget. This locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for #Ukraine. EU is taking leadership & responsibility in support for Ukraine; we know what is at stake,” Michel wrote on X. The EU leaders have agreed to hold a debate about its assistance to Ukraine every year, and to review it after two years if necessary, The Guardian reported on Thursday, citing the EU summit’s conclusions. According to the conclusions, the European Council will hold a debate every year on the implementation of the Ukraine facility, and will invite the European Commission to make a proposal to review it in two years if needed.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported, citing a European diplomat, that the EU funds for Hungary will remain frozen after Budapest also agreed on the allocation of assistance for Ukraine. European officials have continuously said that they are ready to study alternatives in the event of a final blocking of aid to Kiev from the EU budget. The total amount of EU macro-financial assistance to Ukraine in 2023 amounted to 18 billion euros, transferred in monthly payments in the amount of 1.5 billion euros. This assistance was provided to Kiev regardless of the implementation of reforms and the fight against corruption.

In December, Hungary vetoed an enlargement of the EU’s 2024-2027 budget to incorporate 50 billion euros in macro-financial aid for Ukraine. Media reported that Hungary had proposed splitting the package into four tranches, subject to approval each year. However, several EU diplomats are reportedly opposed to giving Hungary the option of an “annual veto”. Western countries, led by the United States, have been providing military aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s special military operation in February 2022. The aid evolved from providing artillery munitions and training in 2022 to heavy weapons, including tanks, advanced air-defense systems, prohibited cluster munitions and long-range missiles, later that year and in 2023.

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Your top man must be a warmonger.

Zelensky Wants Zaluzhny Out Over Effort At Ceasefire With Russia – Hersh (Sp.)

Volodymyr Zelensky wants to remove Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny from his post because of his alleged involvement in secret talks with Western officials about pursuing a ceasefire with Russia, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported. On Monday, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko said, citing sources, that Zaluzhny was allegedly ordered to resign. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry and Zelensky’s spokesman denied the claims. “Zelensky’s desire to fire his commanding general is the result, some Americans believe, of his knowledge that Zaluzhny had continued to participate – whether directly or through aides is not known – in secret talks since last fall with American and other Western officials on how best to achieve a ceasefire and negotiate an end to the war with Russia,” Hersh said on Thursday. The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources, that the Ukrainian government had postponed the dismissal of Zaluzhny due to a leak of information about his possible resignation.

The government planned to fire Zaluzhny, but on Monday evening, when information leaked, it decided to back off, the report said, adding that now, the government is slowing down the process. According to reports, Zelensky was forced to reverse his decision as international partners, including the United States and the United Kingdom, expressed concern about Zelensky’s actions.Zelensky reportedly met with Zaluzhny to inform the general of the decision to fire him. Instead, Zelensky offered Zaluzhny the post of secretary of the country’s security council, but Zaluzhny turned it down. The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, and the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, were named candidates for the post of commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, the report added.

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If only he could find a replacement.

Zelensky To Fire Top General This Week – CNN (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky intends to fire his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, before the end of the week, CNN claimed on Wednesday citing sources familiar with the situation. The report follows similar rumors appearing in outlets such as the Financial Times and the Washington Post, which have so far been dismissed by Kiev. The relationship between the two men reportedly began to deteriorate when the general wrote an article for The Economist in November, describing the battlefield situation as a “stalemate” following Kiev’s failed counteroffensive. The president has vehemently rejected that assessment. According to CNN, Zaluzhny was called into Zelensky’s office on Monday, where he was told he would be fired in the next few days. While no formal announcement has yet been made, a source allegedly told the outlet that a presidential decree is expected by the end of the week.

Rumors that the country’s popular military leader would be replaced originally started circulating in the media earlier this week based on anonymous sources in Kiev. The Washington Post claimed that the president explained his decision to Zaluzhny by saying that a new commander was needed to rejuvenate the situation, as the Ukrainian people had grown tired of war while Kiev’s foreign backers had reduced military assistance. The general was then reportedly offered an advisory position, which he declined, opting instead to leave the military entirely, a source told the outlet. After reports of Zaluzhny’s imminent sacking leaked on Monday, Zelensky spokesman Sergey Nikiforov issued an official statement insisting it was “untrue.” The Ukrainian Defense Ministry also posted a message on social media declaring the rumors false.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the Ukrainian president had chosen to reconsider the decision after the initial plan ended up in the press. However, another source told the paper that the firing had only been temporarily delayed while Kiev looks for a fitting replacement for Zaluzhny. Moscow, meanwhile, has described the rumors of the Ukrainian commander’s dismissal as a sign that Kiev’s leadership is in disarray and has “a lot of problems,” according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. He predicted that divisions in Ukraine’s military and civilian leadership stemming from the failed counteroffensive would continue to grow as Russia proceeds with its objectives.

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“Syrsky himself – alongside the Ukrainian military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov – reportedly “politely declined” an offer to take up Zaluzhny’s position..”

Zelensky’s Generals Refuse To Accept Firing Top Commander – Bild (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been unable to fire the nation’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, because both replacements under consideration refused the job, the tabloid Bild reported on Thursday. A host of Western and Ukrainian media previously claimed, citing anonymous sources in Kiev, that Zelensky had sacked Zaluzhny, prompting the Ukrainian government to refute those rumors. According to Bild, the president did attempt to fire the general on Monday and had to reverse his decision “within an hour” because he could not find a replacement for the nation’s top commander. The move drew strong opposition from the Ukrainian generals, the tabloid claimed. Zelensky allegedly wanted to see Ground Forces Commander Aleksandr Syrsky in Zaluzhny’s place because “he is more loyal to the president,” Bild said, citing Gustav Gressel, a Ukraine expert with the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

The generals disapproved of the choice because they see Zaluzhny as a “more humane” leader who is “closer to the troops,” the analyst explained. Syrsky himself – alongside the Ukrainian military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov – reportedly “politely declined” an offer to take up Zaluzhny’s position, the paper claimed. Yesterday, Britain’s The Times named Syrsky and Budanov as possible candidates to be Ukraine’s top general, also reporting that they had refused. Despite Zaluzhny retaining his post, the conflict between him and Zelensky continues to “smolder,” Bild alleged. The relationship between the two men reportedly began to deteriorate when the general wrote an article for The Economist in November, describing the battlefield situation as a “stalemate” following Kiev’s failed counteroffensive. The president has vehemently rejected that assessment.

According to the German outlet, the president and his commander also clashed over strategy in the cities of Bakhmut and Avdeevka. In late spring 2023, when the Russian forces were pressing their advantage against the Ukrainians in Bakhmut, Zelensky insisted the city should be held to the last man, while Zaluzhny wanted to withdraw to preserve his forces, the paper said, adding that the situation was being repeated in Avdeevka. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Zelensky had abandoned his plans to fire the top general after his plan was leaked to the media. CNN reported on Thursday, however, that the Ukrainian leader still wanted to go ahead with the decision and would fire Zaluzhny by the end of the week.

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“..even the Pentagon has admitted there is no evidence showing Iran had a hand in the drone attack. Nevertheless, Biden has asserted Iran is to blame and that this gives the U.S. a right to respond militarily..”

Biden Makes Clear Case for NATO Complicity Over IL-76 Shoot-Down (SCF)

Joe Biden is contending that the United States has the right to attack Iran as a result of the deadly strike on a U.S. base in Jordan which killed three American troops. Biden is throwing rocks in a glass house if we then look at the case of the IL-76 shoot-down over Russia when 74 people were killed. It is by no means clear if Iran was involved in the Jordan base raid. Tehran strongly denies it and even the Pentagon has admitted there is no evidence showing Iran had a hand in the drone attack. Nevertheless, Biden has asserted Iran is to blame and that this gives the U.S. a right to respond militarily. If Biden can make that case, then the United States and its NATO allies should be held accountable for the shooting down of the IL-76 transport plane over Russia killing all onboard, according to the reasoning of none other than the US President.

By “accountable” that means Russia has the right to take retaliatory military action against the culprit of the crime in which 74 people were killed. Again, this is according to Biden’s own reasoning.Biden was not speaking about the fatal IL-76 incident that occurred on January 24 when nine Russian servicemen and 65 Ukrainian prisoners were killed after their cargo plane was hit in mid-air with a warhead. The president was responding to U.S. journalists questioning him about the deaths of three American military personnel at a base in Jordan that Iraqi militants attacked on January 28. Biden said he held Iran responsible for the American fatalities and vowed to retaliate. Somewhat contradictorily, the president and his spokesmen have said the United States does not seek to have a wider war with Iran even though Biden said he intends to attack Iranian assets in a “tiered way at a time of his choosing”. If that’s not a wider war, what is?

Iran has vehemently denied any involvement in the drone attack on the U.S. base in Jordan near the border with Syria and Iraq. The strike was claimed by Iraqi militia known as Islamic Resistance which is allied with Iran.Asked if he blamed Iran, Biden said he did “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.” Iran and the Iraqi militants are affiliated in a similar way to Tehran’s support for Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen. All are motivated by staunch opposition to U.S. military occupation in the Middle East and Washington’s support for Israel’s genocidal aggression in Gaza. Collectively, Iran and its allies are known as the Axis of Resistance.There is no evidence that Iran supplied the weapons to the militants who killed the three American troops. Iran contends that each resistance member possesses its own agency and decision-making.

By contrast, however, the supply of American and other NATO weaponry to the Kiev regime is publicly recorded. It is estimated that the West has funded Ukraine with a total of $200 billion since the proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022. About half of that has been spent on weapons that include long-range missiles such as Patriot, Shadow Storm, Scalp and Iris-T systems. British and French cruise missiles have been repeatedly used to hit pre-war Russian territory such as Belgorod resulting in dozens of civilian deaths. The strike on the IL-76 transport plane is believed to have been carried out with Western-supplied weapons. Russian crash investigators have this week confirmed earlier claims that the cargo plane was shot down with a NATO weapon, either a U.S.-made Patriot missile system or a German Iris-T surface-to-air missile.

When the IL-76 was blown out of the sky on January 24 over Russia’s Belgorod region, Russian radars detected the launch of two anti-aircraft warheads nearly 100 kilometers away from the target. The missiles were allegedly fired from the location of Liptsy in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkov province. It is believed that only NATO-supplied weapons to the Ukrainian forces could have achieved that extensive range.At the time of the IL-76 shoot-down, the Kremlin said that if it confirmed that Western weapons were responsible then Russia would deem the West to be complicit in the crime. On January 26, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said: “According to preliminary investigation, Ukrainian armed forces carried out this terrorist attack using an anti-aircraft missile system. The missiles were launched from the village of Liptsy in Kharkov region.”

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“..despite all the aid that has been sent to Ukraine, which he estimated to be over $200 billion, the army itself is woefully ill-equipped for battle..”

Ukraine’s ‘Failed State’ Status (DeMartino)

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s security service announced that five Ukrainians, including the current head of a department in Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, had been served with notices of suspicion related to the embezzlement of nearly $40 million that was supposed to be spent on artillery shells.The news was the latest in a consistent pattern of fraud and corruption being reported in Ukraine since Russia’s special military operation began nearly two years ago. Former Ukrainian ambassador and whistleblower Andrii Telizhenko told Sputnik’s Fault Lines that corruption is rife in Kiev and is only getting worse. “So this whole scheme of $40 million is just a small little example,” Telizhenko explained. “Ukraine became a failed state,” Telizhenko said, “because of the corruption and because Ukraine was sold off to the people inside Ukraine, was sold off to its Western allies, and people in Ukraine are suffering from this.”

Telizhenko noted that despite all the aid that has been sent to Ukraine, which he estimated to be over $200 billion, the army itself is woefully ill-equipped for battle. “People are still collecting money to buy medical kits and drones for the soldiers,” Telizhenko said. “[This is] what is happening in Ukraine, total corruption.” Telizhenko noted that there was another case in which more than $1 billion worth of military equipment that the US Department of Defense authorized to be sent to Ukraine never arrived and the DoD was unable to locate them. “So this is a great example where equipment is being lost for billions of dollars, equipment is not being made for hundreds of millions of dollars, and it’s all being stolen by the Kiev regime, and I think, with the help of the deep state government in Washington.”The actions by Ukrainian authorities to arrest those involved in the motor scandal are token gestures, says Telizhenko,“It’s all a big show.”The corruption in Ukraine has always been there but grew exponentially after the West began meddling in Ukrainian affairs, he explained.

“Corruption, which was inside Ukraine, which [already] was pretty big, but then it came from the outside, from people like [US President Joe] Biden in Washington, the deep state, which said, ‘Oh, why [don’t] we also make money on this together with the Ukrainian politicians?’” Telizhenko blasted the Ukrainian officials calling them “hypocrites” and “so-called patriots.” The corruption is so entrenched, Telizhenko said, that it will take more than the removal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to root it out.“It [is] coming to a situation where a change of government in Washington, DC, a change of national policy issues in Washington, people like [Former US President Donald] Trump [could] come in,” Telizhenko explained. “He spoke about making peace in 24 hours, that’s a possibility.” “The end game… for Ukraine is to have a new government inside Ukraine and to see what government comes from Washington, maybe that will give some stability in the world,” he concluded.

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“..we see how the [countries in the union are] going really down the slope and nobody’s stopping it..”

Mass European Farmer Protests Blowback for Ukraine Support (Sp.)

After farmers blocked highways leading into Paris last week, farmers from several other European countries have followed suit, protesting against their countries’ dropping of fuel subsidies, green regulations and dropping sale prices. Veteran war correspondent Elijah Magnier told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Wednesday that the root causes of the protests stem from Europe’s decision “to follow the United States policy and join the war against Russia.”
“We shot ourselves in the foot, basically that’s very soft – we shot ourselves in the head and now we are paying the price,” Magnier said. He noted how everything from energy to consumer food prices has skyrocketed in Europe, but that has not caused European leaders to change course. “Now, they are attacking the heart of Europe that are the farmers … they can no longer stand on their feet with the difference of prices, with the increase of price [for consumers and] the lower price that the markets are buying off of them.”

Co-host Jamarl Thomas asked Magnier what demands the farmers have. Magnier replied that they want protection from cheap products coming out of Ukraine, subsidies on diesel fuel to be reinstated, the rollback of European Green New Deal regulations that limit when and what crops are allowed to be planted and a fair price from the supermarket that matches the cost of living increases in Europe. Part of the issue, says Magnier is that the EU hamstrings what the individual countries’ leaders can do to respond to their population. “It’s a serious issue today in Europe, where the European leaders are no longer able to rule Europe as it used to be, and we see how the [countries in the union are] going really down the slope and nobody’s stopping it,” Magnier explained.

In particular, Magnier explained, farmers are angry that they have to follow the new regulations but Ukraine is allowed to skirt them under the guise that they are at war. “When you say ‘you cannot plant this kind of vegetable at this particular time of the year because of the CO2 and because of the climate change and because we need to transform Europe into a green environment,’” Magnier explained. “You cannot [also] say, ‘Okay, this is applicable only on the Europeans [with] the exception of Ukraine,’ that doesn’t go, it doesn’t work. “The farmers today are waking up [to] the consequences of the Ukrainian conflict and they are saying ‘we have to be completely detached from what is happening in Ukraine because this is not our war,’” he added. Instead of fighting with the farmers, Magnier said he believes the EU should at least pause the Green New Deal regulations until after the conflict in Ukraine is over and talk to the farmers about what they need and can accommodate, but he noted that trust between the two parties has already been severed.

“So what [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen is saying is, ‘Well, I’m ready to talk to you to see what we need and how we can work together.’ But it is too late. [The EU should] stop all [their] procedures and say, ‘let us talk.’ But you don’t negotiate with the knife at the throat of the farmers saying, ‘Well, now I have to think what I can lift, what I cannot lift.'” “If the leaders in Brussels don’t start talking and listening to the farmers, they cannot achieve their [Green New Deal] plan, so the plan is unachievable,” he added.

Dutch farmer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1753176829169398094

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Vault 7. “..Schulte had helped create the hacking tools that he later exposed to WikiLeaks..”

CIA Staffer Sentenced To 40 Years For Leaking US Hacking Secrets (RT)

A former CIA software engineer who embarrassed his employer by allegedy giving a massive trove of classified information to WikiLeaks has been sentenced to 40 years in prison by a New York judge. US District Court Judge Jesse Furman handed down the sentence against Joshua Schulte on Thursday, falling short of the life prison term that federal prosecutors had requested. Schulte, who was accused of carrying out the largest theft of US secrets in the CIA’s history, was convicted on charges of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and possessing child pornography. Schulte, 35, was allegedly the source behind the so-called Vault 7 release by WikiLeaks in 2017, which exposed the methods used by the CIA to hack smartphones and other devices.

The bombshell report exposed how the US spied on foreign governments, terrorism suspects and other targets, creating a major embarrassment for Washington’s intelligence agencies. It also reportedly triggered a secret CIA plot to kidnap or assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Prior to his arrest in 2018, Schulte had helped create the hacking tools that he later exposed to WikiLeaks. The CIA tactics included efforts to turn so-called smart TVs – televisions with online connectivity – into listening devices. Prosecutors claimed he was behind “the most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history.”Schulte argued during his July 2022 trial that the CIA and FBI were making him a scapegoat for a humiliating leak of data that could have been stolen by hundreds of other people. He claimed, too, that he had no motive to carry out such a leak.

During Thursday’s sentencing hearing, he complained of horrible conditions in his New York jail cell, which he called a “torture cage,” and he said prosecutors were seeking “vengeance” after previously offering him a plea bargain calling for a 10-year prison sentence. Furman found that Schulte was motivated by “anger, spite and perceived grievance” against his CIA bosses after they ignored his complaints about working conditions. After being jailed in 2018, the ex-programmer continued trying to leak classified materials in what prosecutors called an “information war” with the US government, the judge said.

While executing a search warrant in the espionage case, FBI investigators allegedly found an encrypted cache of more than 3,000 images and videos depicting child sexual abuse on Schulte’s home computer, according to prosecutors. More than six years of his 40-year prison sentence stemmed from the pornography charges. Although Furman didn’t grant the request by the US Department of Justice to imprison Schulte for life, he did agree to apply a “terrorism enhancement,” a legal provision that allows harsher sentences for terrorism-related offenses. Assange, who has been jailed in London since 2019 while fighting extradition to the US, faces up to 175 years in prison on 17 espionage charges.

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Waters is 80 years old and doing massive sold out shows all the time. He’ll be fine.

Roger Waters Faces Axe by Record Label Over Defiant Israel Stance (Sp.)

Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) is reportedly planning to axe its 2016 publishing deal with 80-year-old rock legend Roger Waters over his “inflammatory comments” on the crises in Israel and Ukraine, and his outspoken criticism of the United States. Sources told entertainment magazine Variety that the Germany-based record giant is getting ready to take the radical step to “separate entirely” from Waters. Ordinarily, publishing deals are generally allowed to expire without renewal instead of being prematurely ended. Waters mentioned being “fired” by BMG in an interview with independent journalist Glenn Greenwald late last year, citing pressure from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League pro-Israeli lobbying group, over his outspoken position on the conflict in Gaza.

“Bertelsmann’s, did they say ‘F*ck you Jonathan Greenblatt, we’re a proper company and this is a great artist and we have his publishing and we supported him and he makes great records’? No, they didn’t. They went ‘ok’ and they fired me, boom!” Waters recalled, accusing Greenblatt of falsely labeling him an “anti-Semite” and threatening to “remind the public” that BGM “collaborated with the Nazis in World War II” to push the label to axe him. After the October 7 escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, Waters, a longtime self-professed pro-Palestinian peace activist, accused Israel of “committing genocide” and suggested that “its leaders and any Western leaders who support it should be prosecuted under the Genocide Convention.”

On Ukraine, Waters was invited by Russia to speak at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council last February, where he condemned all sides in the conflict but emphasized that Russia’s special military operation was “not unprovoked” and the “provocateurs” must be condemned “in the strongest possible terms.” Waters’ nuanced stance on the Ukrainian crisis led his name to be placed on a notorious ‘kill list’ website linked to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Consistently speaking out against the suspected crimes of the UK government as a “willing accomplice and satellite of the American Empire,” Rogers has decried the “US Empire” as “the most evil of all by a factor of at least ten times.”

Waters’ future with BGM was called into question last year. After being appointed CEO of BMG last July, record industry big whig Thomas Coesfeld unilaterally canceled the release of a new 50th anniversary recording of Dark Side of the Moon, the legendary album which propelled Pink Floyd and Waters to international stardom in 1973. The album wound up being released by independent UK-based publisher Cooking Vinyl Publishing instead. Waters was Pink Floyd’s lead lyricist, co-lead vocalist and band leader between 1968 and 1985. He was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, and has often been characterized as one of the top rock singer-songwriters of all time.

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Steele belongs in jail. But he has protection.

UK High Court Throws Out Trump’s Christopher Steele Case (BBC)

Donald Trump’s attempt to bring a case in the UK courts against a former MI6 officer who wrote a salacious dossier linking him to Russia has failed. The former president had been seeking to use data protection laws to sue Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, the company run by Christopher Steele. Mr Steele compiled the dossier which had unproven allegations about bribing officials and sex parties. It was leaked to the media just before Mr Trump was sworn in as president. In bringing the lawsuit, he said the dossier contained allegations that were inaccurate and breached his data protection rights. A ruling on Thursday by the High Court in London threw out the case. Mrs Justice Steyn DBE said she did not make any judgement on the allegations themselves but found Mr Trump’s claim had not been brought within the six-year limitation period.

“There are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial,” she wrote. A statement is expected from Mr Steele later today. The case stems from 2016, when a US political consultancy asked Mr Steele’s company to produce a report into potential Russian interference in that year’s US general election. The project was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s Democrats and other political opponents of Mr Trump. Mr Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia desk, sent his findings to the FBI, a British national security officer and an aide to a senior US senator. The dossier, later obtained and published by BuzzFeed News, detailed uncorroborated intelligence claims that Mr Trump had a “compromising relationship with the Kremlin”.

The former president said in his witness statement when he brought the case last year that “none of these things [in the Steele dossier] ever happened.” “I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in ‘golden showers’ in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow.” Mr Trump said official investigations had debunked the dossier but it continued “to cause me significant damage and distress” because people still believed it. He added that he had not had time to sue in the UK before 2023 because he had been busy being president. Antony White KC, for Orbis, told the court in October that Mr Trump had accepted that the company was not responsible for BuzzFeed’s publication of the document.

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X thread that Musk labeled “interesting”.

“Elon Musk paid more income tax than anyone ever in the history of Earth back in 2021. He paid over $11 billion in taxes.”

Interesting – Elon Musk (Kanekoa)

Judge Kathaleen McCormick rescinded Elon Musk’s $55 billion Tesla compensation package, overturning the company’s board and 80% of its shareholders. McCormick also ruled against @elonmusk during his Twitter acquisition. Before becoming the head of the Delaware Chancery Court, McCormick worked at a Delaware law firm called Young Conaway. This firm and its employees have been major donors to President Joe Biden for decades. In 2016, Hunter Biden hosted a gubernatorial campaign event for Congressman John Carney, with then-Vice President Joe Biden as the guest speaker. This event took place at the Law Offices of Young Conaway in Wilmington, Delaware. Carney, a close friend of Joe Biden for the last four decades, later became governor and nominated Kathaleen McCormick, a partner at Young Conaway, to her position on the Delaware Chancery Court.

In a March 2018 email, Hunter Biden claimed to personally know every judge on the Delaware Chancery Court while threatening legal action against his Chinese business partners. “I will bring the suit in the Chancery court in Delaware – which as you know is my home state and I am privileged to have worked with and know every judge on the chancery court.” After Elon Musk purchased Twitter with the stated goal of restoring free-speech, President Biden called for a federal investigation into Musk on the podium at the White House. Following this, the Biden Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Federal Trade Commission initiated legal actions and investigations against Tesla, SpaceX, and X. This recent decision by Judge McCormick, who worked with Biden’s top donors and was nominated by Biden’s close friend, to override Tesla’s board and the majority of its shareholders is another clear example of the Biden administration and its allies weaponizing the American legal system against their political opponents.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 

 

 

Brahman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752804731859218932

 

 

Treat

 

 

Disabled
https://twitter.com/i/status/1753069487925190827

 

 

Tiny
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752811211866116527

 

 

Mandarin

 

 

Ears
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752788518420840805

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 162022
 


Caravaggio The calling of St. Matthew 1599-1600

 

Severe COVID-19 ‘Rare’ In Unvaccinated People (MD)
FDA Advisors Unanimously Endorse COVID Shots for Infants and Young Kids (CHD)
The World Is Looking At You (Batiushka)
First American Mercenary Contractors Captured in Ukraine (CTH)
The ‘New G8’ Meets China’s ‘Three Rings’ (Escobar)
Schiff: Evidence That Trump “Engaged in Likely Multiple Criminal Acts (Turley)
ECB Holds Emergency Meeting To Discuss Market Turmoil (ZH)
PPI: Smoking -AGAIN- (Denninger)
Today’s The Day…. (Denninger)
“Red Flag” Laws Put a Target on the Back of Every American (Whitehead)
Erdogan Issues Fresh Threats Against Greece (K.)
A Whistleblower’s Agony (Kiriakou)
Patel Responsible For Assange’s ‘Slow-Motion Execution’ If Extradited (DIss.)

 

 

 

 

Consumer feelings

 

 

 

 

Blink

 

 

 

 

DeSantis Musk

 

 

 

 

We’ve known for a while that the vaccines don’t protect against infection or transmission. The last thing they had left was protection against severe disease. That is now gone too. It’s over.

Severe COVID-19 ‘Rare’ In Unvaccinated People (MD)

A survey has found that people who did not get the vaccine had a lower rate of suffering severe COVID-19 amid the pandemic. The survey uploaded to the preprint server ResearchGate presented data from more than 18,500 respondents from the “Control Group” project with more than 300,000 overall participants. An analysis revealed that compared to those who got jabbed, unvaccinated people reported fewer hospitalizations. The international survey also found that the unvaccinated people from more than 175 countries were more likely to self-care to prevent and manage COVID-19 infection. They used natural products like vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, quercetin, and drugs, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

Many participants experienced discrimination for refusing the administration of “genetic vaccines” and struggled with mental health burdens due to the stigma in the mostly “vaccinated” society. Since the participants were self-selected and self-reported, the survey findings had to be interpreted with care compared to statistics or studies based on randomly selected populations, according to the Alliance for Natural Health International. The participants admitted to avoiding vaccines due to their preference for natural medicine interventions and skepticism of pharmaceutical interventions. They also voiced distrust of government information and fear of the possible adverse effects of the vaccines in the long run.

The survey was conducted from September 2021 through February 2022. During the period, participants experienced mild to moderate COVID-19 infection and were infrequently hospitalized. A number of female participants suffered menstrual and bleeding abnormalities, prompting the researchers who analyzed the data to surmise that the issues might have been caused by spike protein exposure and shedding, as per The Epoch Times.


Well, no

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Read the article above and then explain this.

FDA Advisors Unanimously Endorse COVID Shots for Infants and Young Kids (CHD)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine advisory panel today unanimously voted 21-0 to recommend Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines for infants and young children, stating the totality of the evidence available shows the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks of use. Pfizer’s three-dose vaccine would cover children 6 months to 5 years old, while Moderna’s two-dose vaccine covers children 6 months to 6 years old. States have already ordered millions of doses made available prior to FDA authorization by the Biden administration. Depending on whether the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accept the recommendations of their advisory panels, White House officials have said the administration of vaccines for these age groups could start as early as June 21.


The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) ignored pleas from experts, the vaccine injured and a congressman representing 17 other lawmakers to halt authorization until questions about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines for the nation’s youngest children could be properly addressed. Many of the committee members, including pediatrician Dr. Ofer Levy, said the decision to authorize the shots was about providing a choice to parents who wanted access to COVID-19 vaccines, despite concerns by public commenters the panel was not adhering to the requirements for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and that authorization would eventually lead to mandates — as it did with adult vaccines.

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“..the eyes of the freedom-loving world are turned to the Russian Federation..”

The World Is Looking At You (Batiushka)

As a result of this first War atheist Bolsheviks seized power in the former Russian Empire. Although well over 600,000 Russian troops had died in the two and half years up until February 1917, as they, unlike the Allies on the Western Front, had faced the vast majority of the forces of Germany, Austro-Hungary and Turkey, far worse was to come. Foreign-sponsored foreigners, like the brain-fevered Blank-Lenin and the evil genius Bronstein-Trotsky, killed millions in a civil war, including the Imperial Family, and through deliberate starvation. Many more would later die in concentration camps. And unlike in the First War when the enemy never even entered Russia, in the Second War the enemy reached the very gates of Moscow, Leningrad and the banks of the Volga, slaughtering 27 million, mainly civilians.

But then there was the American flu (called for propaganda reasons ‘Spanish flu’). Beginning in Kansas, it was brought to Europe in 1917 by American troops, who had entered the First War, as arranged, as soon as the treacherous ‘Allies’ (not Germany) had succeeded in overthrowing Imperial Russia. The Americans had come to conquer Europe. After the Great European Suicide of the First War, this flu may have killed another 50 million, though some say far more. But above all, exactly as the French Marshal Foch foretold at Versailles, the ‘Peace’ of 1919 led directly to the Second Great War that broke out twenty years later. And that murdered tens of millions and in 1945 made Western Europe into a conquered and occupied province of the USA, which then set about creating a USE (United States of Europe) in its own image.

And so came the Cold War, with its MAD (mutually assured destruction) phobia, bunker-building, wasteful spending on arms, and the new generation’s social revolution of the 1960s. In turn came the next generation of 1989, 75 years after 1914 and 50 years after 1939, and the occupation of Eastern Europe by the same US colonists, sending out their proconsul-ambassadors to the client states of the ‘New Europe’. In 1991, 50 years after Operation Barbarossa of Nazi Imperialism ravaged the USSR but was defeated, the latter fell to Nato Imperialism. And in turn, 100 years after the Great European Suicide began, the Evil Empire began its occupation of the Ukraine in 2014, turning it into a dependent vassal. The whole pattern of the hundred years, 1914-2014, had the same source.

Until 2022 there had never been any hope of justice and restitution for any of this. Then on 24 February began the Special Operation to liberate the Ukraine and denazify the world. This is the last throw of the dice and the eyes of the freedom-loving world are turned to the Russian Federation. Even with all its troubles, imperfections and treacheries, we have no other hope. The world is looking at you.

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“The traditional end result for captured mercenaries is execution; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to hang these two State Dept. conscripts.”

First American Mercenary Contractors Captured in Ukraine (CTH)

A contracted mercenary has no legal recognition or protection as a prisoner of war. Two American mercenary soldiers have been captured by Russian forces and now present a rather unique issue for the Biden administration. The traditional end result for captured mercenaries is execution; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to hang these two State Dept. conscripts. (Via Telegraph) – “Two former US servicemen have been captured during fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, The Telegraph has been told. The pair were taken prisoner during a fierce battle outside the north-east city of Kharkiv last week, according to comrades who were fighting alongside them.


Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, had been serving as volunteers with a regular Ukrainian army unit. They are believed to be the first US servicemen to end up as Russian prisoners of war. They join a growing number of Western military volunteers captured by Russian forces, including at least two Britons. Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner have already been told they face the death penalty as “mercenaries”. The capture of the two Americans will be diplomatically sensitive as the Kremlin may seek to use it as proof that America is becoming directly involved in the war. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is likely to demand significant concessions to release them.”

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“The new G8, instead, “does not impose anything on anyone, but tries to find common solutions.”

The ‘New G8’ Meets China’s ‘Three Rings’ (Escobar)

The speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, may have created the defining acronym for the emerging multipolar world: “the new G8”. As Volodin noted, “the United States has created conditions with its own hands so that countries wishing to build an equal dialogue and mutually beneficial relations will actually form a ‘new G8’ together with Russia.” This non Russia-sanctioning G8, he added, is 24.4% ahead of the old one, which is in fact the G7, in terms of GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP), as G7 economies are on the verge of collapsing and the U.S. registers record inflation.

The power of the acronym was confirmed by one of the researchers on Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergei Fedorov: three BRICS members (Brazil, China and India) alongside Russia, plus Indonesia, Iran, Turkey and Mexico, all non adherents to the all-out Western economic war against Russia, will soon dominate global markets. Fedorov stressed the power of the new G8 in population as well as economically: “If the West, which restricted all international organizations, follows its own policies, and pressures everyone, then why are these organizations necessary? Russia does not follow these rules.” The new G8, instead, “does not impose anything on anyone, but tries to find common solutions.”

The coming of the new G8 points to the inevitable advent of BRICS +, one of the key themes to be discussed in the upcoming BRICS summit in China. Argentina is very much interested in becoming part of the extended BRICS and those (informal) members of the new G8 – Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, Mexico – are all likely candidates. The intersection of the new G8 and BRICS + will lead Beijing to turbo-charge what has already been conceptualized as the Three Rings strategy by Cheng Yawen, from the Institute of International Relations and Public Affairs at the Shanghai International Studies University.

Cheng argues that since the beginning of the 2018 U.S.-China trade war the Empire of Lies and its vassals have aimed to “decouple”; thus the Middle Kingdom should strategically downgrade its relations with the West and promote a new international system based on South-South cooperation. Looks like if it walks and talks like the new G8, that’s because it’s the real deal.

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Schiff himself “Engaged in Likely Multiple Criminal Acts”.

Schiff: Evidence That Trump “Engaged in Likely Multiple Criminal Acts (Turley)

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) went on CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight” to tout the work of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th riot. In that interview, Schiff declared that the Committee has enough evidence showing former President Donald Trump “engaged in likely multiple criminal acts.” While vague on the specific crimes, Schiff emphasized that the Justice Department did not have to wait any further to launch a criminal investigation based on what has already been disclosed. While the Committee has disclosed new evidence in the form of videotapes and testimony, it has not presented new material evidence of criminal acts in my view. That could still come but the first two hearings largely focused on a “conspiracy” to challenge the election certification and allegations that Trump knew the there was no compelling evidence of widespread election fraud.

If there is evidence of criminal conduct by former president Trump or others, most of us would support the calls for prosecution. It is also possible that the Justice Department is investigating such crimes or has undisclosed evidence. The hearings, however, have not established such a foundation. That can still come but these crimes have elements that have not been addressed in hearings that have lacked any opposing views or adversarial elements. The decision of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to abandon the long tradition of bipartisan members on such selection committee has robbed the investigation of credibility and legitimacy for many Americans.

Indeed, Schiff’s reference to evidence held by the Committee is likely to bring up memories of his highly controversial public statements that the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs, had direct evidence of Russian collusion despite the countervailing findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He never produced the evidence and later it was revealed that Justice officials and FBI agents had told his Committee that they did not find such evidence. Now, Schiff is maintaining that:

“I certainly believe there’s enough evidence for them to open an investigation of several people, and so did Judge David Carter of California believes the former president and others were engaged in likely multiple criminal acts. So if the Justice Department concurs with Judge Carter, let alone my own view or others, they should be pursuing that. So, yes, I think there is sufficient evidence to open an investigation. It would be of you up to the Justice Department ultimately to decide does that evidence rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt such that they’re comfortable indicting someone. But there’s certainly, in my view, enough evidence to open up investigations.”

The reference to the Carter opinion has become a mainstay on cable news. I was critical of Judge Carter’s opinion when it was released. Much of the Jan. 6th hearings seem to be structured along the same lines as the Carter decision which was, in my view, strikingly conclusory and unsupported in critical parts of the analysis. Judge Carter simply declares that Trump knew that the election was not stolen and thus “the illegality of the plan was obvious.” Putting aside the court’s assumption of what Trump secretly concluded on the election, a sizable number of Americans still do not view Biden as legitimately elected. The court is not simply saying that they are wrong in that view but, because they are wrong, legislative challenges amounted to criminal obstruction of Congress.

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First Japan, then Europe, then the US. Russia and China will remain standing.

ECB Holds Emergency Meeting To Discuss Market Turmoil (ZH)

Last week, shortly after the ECB’s latest meeting disappointed markets and concluded without a discussion of Europe’s growing bond market fragmentation which has since sent Italian bond yields soaring above 4%, we joked that “at this rate the ECB would make an emergency rate cut” just hours after announcing an end to QT and guiding to a July rate hike. Once again, our jokes was not too far from the truth because on Wednesday morning, just hours before the Fed’s first 75bps rate hike sine 1994, and with Italian bonds in freefall, European Central Bank unexpectedly announced it would hold an emergency , ad hoc meeting of its rate-setters starting 11am CET in which it would “discuss current market conditions.”

The meeting, which comes less than a week after the rate-setting governing council’s last vote, raised investor expectations that the central bank is preparing to announce a policy instrument to stave-off another debt crisis in the region, which can only come in the form of more QE… which is ironic at a time when the ECB just announced it was phasing out all QE! Italian government bonds rallied in price following news of the planned meeting, reversing some of the recent sell-off that analysts said brought the country’s borrowing costs towards the “danger zone”. Gilles Moec, chief economist at Axa, an insurer, said the “stakes are high” for the ECB “now that everyone is dusting off their debt sustainability spreadsheets for Italy, they probably need to go up an extra notch”.

[..] ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel indicated in a speech on Tuesday evening that the central bank was getting closer to the point where it would intervene in bond markets, saying “some borrowers have seen significantly larger changes in financing conditions than others since the start of the year”. She added: “Such changes in financing conditions may constitute an impairment in the transmission of monetary policy that requires close monitoring.” Schnabel, the ECB executive who oversees its market operations and one of the most influential voices on its board, said the central bank’s commitment to the euro had no limits. “And our track record of stepping in when needed backs up this commitment,” she added. But wait, this means… more QE at a time when the ECB just vowed… less QE!!??

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”Choose one and only one: Feel good or be able to afford food and basically everything else.”

PPI: Smoking -AGAIN- (Denninger)

Oh my look what we have here! “The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.8 percent in May, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This rise followed advances of 0.4 percent in April and 1.6 percent in March. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, final demand prices moved up 10.8 percent for the 12 months ended in May.” So…. two points, more or less, higher than CPI. PPI leads, I remind you, so the consumer inflation level has not peaked. Let’s look inside. “Final demand goods: The index for final demand goods moved up 1.4 percent in May, the fifth consecutive rise. Over 70 percent of the increase in May can be traced to a 5.0-percent advance in prices for final demand energy. The index for final demand goods less foods and energy moved up 0.7 percent, while prices for final demand foods were unchanged.”

Oh really? Only 5% eh? Well, don’t look at June, because gasoline, for example, has risen by more than 10% in the last two weeks which is all in June. Oops. “Product detail: Nearly 30 percent of the May increase in the index for final demand services can be attributed to prices for truck transportation of freight, which rose 2.9 percent.” No kidding? You mean $6+ diesel fuel turns directly into higher shipping prices? I just got back from a cross-country trip and saw lots of dead dinosaurs coming out of the stack of 18 wheelers and every one of them had better keep moving or you’re not eating, never mind being able to buy and consume anything else. The current Administration’s war on fossil fuels might make you feel good but it is also directly responsible for this insanity. Choose one and only one: Feel good or be able to afford food and basically everything else.

The really nasty is that the 12 month trend is unbroken and, as I noted, it all started right after Biden was inaugurated. He said he was going to do this during the campaign and he has. It takes time for the PPI to reflect down into the final shelf price and it has. But the 12 month final demand number, less food, energy and trade from 12 months prior stands at 6% which it has run at or above since August of last year. Shut it off now and it will be next summer before that has all worked its way through and there’s nothing you can do about the time requirement.

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“At the core what The Fed does is not the question. It’s what Congress does.”

Today’s The Day…. (Denninger)

….. we “celebrate” The Fed decision on rates. Well, yeah, ok. The 13 week bill says the FFR should be 1.5% now. As has almost-always been the case historically (go look at FRED if you don’t believe me) the market leads and The Fed is not actually in charge of rates. Of course this runs counter to the “all-powerful Fed” which suits everyone on all sides. The politicians and conspiracy nuts get to blame someone else for an agency that follows what the market demands because if it doesn’t it is proved impotent and takes a huge loss on top of it. Unfortunately 50 bips will do nothing to cool inflation; to do that short-term rates must be higher than the inflation rate so that the real cost of borrowing is positive. That would mean putting about 700bips on the FFR right here and now – which we know won’t happen.

Then again this has been the problem for the last 30ish years. The slope of the interest rate curve has gone from the upper left to the lower right and thus serial refinancing at the corporate and government level, say much less at the personal level, has looked “free.” That’s the sneaky part of inflation which I explained back when I wrote Leverage with a nice graph. When you run a deliberate inflationary policy over decades the first years look like a free lunch because the apparent “wealth” initially goes up faster than the debt service (which is on a smaller base) and thus produces a “belly” (an area of expansion of the space between the two lines of available spending power and debt service.) This is a chimera and to intentionally run such a policy as a business or government is fraud because all exponential expansions eventually go vertical, and the debt service will eventually cross available funds at which point you’re screwed since you cannot spend 110% of what you have — ever — no matter what you do.

It’s happening now. At the core what The Fed does is not the question. It’s what Congress does. The Fed is constrained to use only Federal Government backed securities for its monetary operations and policy. Yes, it has shaved that repeatedly, most-egregiously with Fannie and Freddie paper during the housing crash which at the time was wildly illegal yet not one person in Congress called them on it nor did anyone from the Executive (e.g. DOJ) stop it despite its blatant illegality. Then Congress went even further and, for all intents and purposes, explicitly backstopped said paper on a retroactive basis which is also illegal, but heh, nobody cared because it was “too big to fail.”

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Total control is the goal.

“Red Flag” Laws Put a Target on the Back of Every American (Whitehead)

What we do not need is yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the Fourth Amendment at will under the guise of public health and safety. Indeed, at a time when red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others) are gaining traction as a legislative means by which to allow police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, it wouldn’t take much for police to be given the green light to enter a home without a warrant in order to seize lawfully-possessed firearms based on concerns that the guns might pose a danger. Frankly, a person wouldn’t even need to own a gun to be subjected to such a home invasion.

SWAT teams have crashed through doors on lesser pretexts based on false information, mistaken identities and wrong addresses. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws allowing the police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats. If Congress succeeds in passing the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order, which would nationalize red flag laws, that number will grow. As The Washington Post reports, these red flag gun laws…”allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”

In the wake of yet another round of mass shootings, these gun confiscation laws—extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws—may appease the fears of those who believe that fewer guns in the hands of the general populace will make our society safer. Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. Anything—knives, vehicles, planes, pressure cookers—can become a weapon when wielded with deadly intentions. With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats… to “stop dangerous people before they act.”

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I think he has elections coming up.

Erdogan Issues Fresh Threats Against Greece (K.)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued fresh threats against Greece, this time accusing the country of supporting an international campaign directed against his country. “We have sent a clear message to everyone concerned about developments in the Aegean,” Erdogan told MPs of his AK Party in the wake of the EFES-2022 military exercise near the Aegean port city of Izmir. “We have seen through the game being played at the expense of our country. They are allowing Greece to behave like a spoiled child as they have done in the past,” he said. “The problem is that Greece is not aware of this game, or it has voluntarily adopted a supporting role,” he said, adding that the country would pay a hefty price for “making the same mistake.”

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Joshua Schulte. Treated like an animal.

A Whistleblower’s Agony (Kiriakou)

A C.I.A. whistleblower languishes awaiting trial in a federal prison under inhumane conditions and almost nobody is paying attention. Joshua Schulte is a former C.I.A. hacker, one of those computer geniuses whose job it is to work his way into the computer systems of our country’s enemies in support of some of the most highly-classified operations the C.I.A. carries out. The government believes that Schulte was a malcontent who released to WikiLeaks in 2017 the equivalent of 2 billion pages of top secret C.I.A. data with code names like Brutal Kangaroo, AngerQuake and McNugget. These programs, collectively known as Vault 7, were custom-made techniques used to compromise Wifi networks, hack into Skype, defeat anti-virus software and even hack into smart TVs and the guidance systems in cars.

They were the C.I.A.’s modern-day crown jewels. One senior C.I.A. officer likened the revelations to “a modern-day Pearl Harbor.” The C.I.A. accused Schulte of stealing the data in 2016 and of sending it to WikiLeaks in 2017. He was eventually charged with 13 felonies, mostly related to the Espionage Act. He was later charged with a number of additional felonies related to child pornography, accusations that he has adamantly denied. Schulte went to trial in New York in early 2020 with the Justice Department accusing him of “the single biggest leak of classified national defense information in the history of the C.I.A.”

After four weeks of testimony and six days of jury deliberation, he was found guilty of contempt of court and making a false statement, both minor charges for which federal sentencing guidelines call for imprisonment of zero-to-six months. The jury deadlocked on all other counts, and the judge declared a mistrial. Schulte remains in prison awaiting retrial. He has been incarcerated since October 2018.

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“This dramatic deterioration of Mr Assange’s health has not yet been considered in his extradition proceedings.”

Patel Responsible For Assange’s ‘Slow-Motion Execution’ If Extradited (DIss.)

A coalition of over 300 doctors warned UK Home Secretary Priti Patel that she may be responsible for the “slow-motion execution” of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if her office approves the United States government’s extradition request. Patel has until June 19, which is ten years after Assange entered Ecuador’s embassy in London and sought political asylum, to decide whether to approve the extradition. Assange faces 18 charges brought against him by the US Justice Department, 17 of which are under the Espionage Act. All the charges relate to documents WikiLeaks released in 2010 and 2011, which were provided by US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Doctors for Assange” is an international coalition of medical doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists who have spoken up for Assange because of the toll the US government’s prosecution has taken on his health. Many of the doctors are from the UK and Australia, which is Assange’s home country. The doctors sent a letter to Patel on June 10, 2022, ahead of the Home Office’s extradition decision. “Should [Assange] come to harm in the US,” the group contends Patel “will be left holding the responsibility for that negligent outcome.” They add, “The extradition of a person with such compromised health, moreover, is medically and ethically unacceptable.” As the doctors recall, Assange’s health has deteriorated in UK custody at Belmarsh prison, where he’s been detained since April 11, 2019.

“In October 2021, Mr. Assange suffered a ‘mini-stroke.’” “This dangerous deterioration of Mr Assange’s health underscores the medical concern that the chronic stress caused by his harsh prison conditions, as well as his justified fear of the conditions that he would face in the case of extradition, leaves Mr. Assange vulnerable to cardiovascular events,” the doctors add. “This dramatic deterioration of Mr Assange’s health has not yet been considered in his extradition proceedings.” The doctors argue the basis for accepting US “assurances” was based upon “outdated medical information,” which should render the assurances “obsolete.” “Under conditions in which the UK legal system has failed to take Mr Assange’s current health status into account, no valid decision to approve his extradition may be made, by you, or anyone else.”

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Tucker Dore

 

 

 

 

Rooster

 

 

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Oct 082021
 
 October 8, 2021  Posted by at 8:58 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Swimming 1908

 

Why Is Pfizer Pushing An Untested Vaccine On Children? (TF)
Judge Orders Gov’t To Provide Evidence To Justify Vaccinating Children (TE)
Moderna: A Company “In Need Of A Hail Mary” (Whitney Webb)
Molnupiravir Was Made Possible By Government-funded Innovation (STAT)
Myocarditis Adverse Events in VAERS (SD)
Stop This NOW (Denninger)
The Cult of the Vaccine Neurotic (Taibbi)
The Problems With Censoring Doctors Over Their COVID-19 Stances (RCS)
Biden Keeps Pushing Nonexistent Worker Vaccine Mandate (CTH)
Poland’s Top Court Rules Polish Law Takes Presedence Over The EU (ZH)
Prosecution Of Alleged WikiLeaks Vault 7 Source Hits Multiple Roadblocks (Y!)

 

 

 

 

Biden speech

 

 

“Boys between 16 and 19 years of age had the highest incidence of myocarditis after the second dose . . . The risk of heart problems in boys of that age was about nine times higher than in unvaccinated boys of the same age.”

Why Is Pfizer Pushing An Untested Vaccine On Children? (TF)

The face of Pfizer – Pfizer board member (and former FDA commissioner) Scott Gottlieb, MD – was on CBS Face the Nation today estimating the upcoming availability of the Pfizer vaccine for kids aged 5-11. His key quote: “The FDA has said the review is going to be a matter of weeks, not months. . . that could give you a vaccine by Halloween.” Perhaps more concerning is the fact that Gottlieb is confident Pfizer will get FDA approval. This concern is based on the questionable safety and effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine for kids aged 5-11, as well as questions over whether there is a need for an emergency use authorization for that segment of the American population.

Pfizer tested the vaccine on a small sample of “2,268 participants 5 to <12 years of age.” Pfizer concluded that the results demonstrated “strong immune response in this cohort of children one month after the second dose.” Pay attention to that last part: “one month after the second dose.” Is that it – is Pfizer pushing this vaccine on children after just one month of efficacy data? (The benefit of the emergency use authorization – studies can be limited.) By now it’s clear this is Pfizer’s pattern: they say the vaccine’s “duration of protection” is “unknown” while data demonstrates its effectiveness wanes over time. Compare the Comirnaty Fact Sheet to the latest reporting on the Pfizer vaccine: One would rightfully assume that the effectiveness of the vaccine will wane in children as it has done in other populations.

One would also be correct to assume this is the rationale for Pfizer to submit its current (one month) data to the FDA, hoping for approval from its friends in government before its study group shows the vaccine has diminishing returns. All that has to do with effectiveness. Now we get to the question of safety. This has always been a pandemic of the oldest among us. According to CDC data, children aged 5-14 years-old have accounted for only 161 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. In comparison, this same group has experienced 194 pneumonia deaths. To put these numbers into perspective, the CDC cites over 530,000 COVID-19 deaths for the ages 65 years and up. As New York Magazine observed, “The Kids Were Safe from COVID the Whole Time.”

Those numbers are important when we start to look at the necessity of a vaccine for kids. As with all vaccines, there is a cost-benefit analysis that must be made: do the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the cost? (This is something the FDA and CDC have drilled to the American public – that the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the costs.) Looking at the data, a 17 year-old teenager might properly disregard the vaccine while a 75 year-old might seriously consider it. This is expected. Considerations of costs and benefits get us to the safety of the vaccine for kids aged 5-12. Pfizer proudly announces the vaccine’s side effects for 5-12 year olds is “generally comparable to those observed in participants 16 to 25 years of age.” That’s not good. If you’ve been paying attention, you know why those numbers (ages 16-25) matter. It’s because young people – especially young men – in that age range have an increased risk of developing heart problems after the second Pfizer dose. The younger they are, the greater the risk: “Boys between 16 and 19 years of age had the highest incidence of myocarditis after the second dose . . . The risk of heart problems in boys of that age was about nine times higher than in unvaccinated boys of the same age.”

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“..since teens over the age of 15 had been given the Covid-19 vaccine deaths among the age group had increased by 47%..”

Judge Orders Gov’t To Provide Evidence To Justify Vaccinating Children (TE)

A Judge has ordered the UK Goverment to submit evidence that justifies Covid-19 vaccination of children, giving them a deadline of Monday 11th October. The order from The Hon. Mr Justice Jay is most welcome after we exclusively revealed Thursday 30th September that since teens over the age of 15 had been given the Covid-19 vaccine deaths among the age group had increased by 47% compared to the same period in 2020. We also then delved back into the Office for National Statistics data due to a suspicion we would find the majority of those deaths had been among teenage boys due to the risk of myocardtis, inflammation of the heart muscle, associated with the Pfizer vaccine and mainly occurring in younger males, as well as a correlation with a rise in emergency calls requesting an ambulance due to cardiac arrest, found in Public Health England data.

Unfortunately our fears were confirmed, as we exclusively revealed on Monday 4th October that deaths among teenage boys have increased by 63% in the UK since they started getting the Covid-19 vaccine. To add to that we then exclusively revealed on Tuesday 5th October that Chris Whitty’s decision to overrule the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and advise the Government to offer the Covid-19 vaccine to all healthy secondary school children, has so far led to a 400% increase in deaths among male children compared to the same period in 2020. (See here) However, people have been fighting in court to overturn the decision of the Chief Medical Officer for England that children should be given an experimental Covid-19 injection, but unfortunately to no avail so far.


The ‘Covid-19 Assembly’ and lawyer Francis Hoar had an application for an urgent hearing to pause the Covid-19 roll-out to under 18’s denied for a second time on September 2nd. The Claimants had asked for just half a day for the Court to listen to oral argument to consider whether to pause the roll out of injections of experimental mRNA vaccine technology, producing increasing reports of clotting and other adverse effects including death, still under emergency authorisation and never before given to humans, to the whole of the healthy population of children aged 12-17. The Court’s view was that to delay consideration of the Claimants’ application for 14 days to allow the government to prepare its response was not in fact a refusal. However, that delay had the practical effect of denying the urgent relief sought and left the full resources and machinery of the state to be put into gear.

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“..without the approval of its booster, which has caused great controversy even among the country’s top vaccine officials, Moderna faces a massive financial reckoning.”

Moderna: A Company “In Need Of A Hail Mary” (Whitney Webb)

Not only did the COVID-19 crisis obliterate hurdles that had previously prevented Moderna from taking a single product to market, it also dramatically reversed the company’s fortunes. Indeed, from 2016 right up until the emergence of COVID-19, Moderna could barely hold it together, as it was shedding key executives, top talent, and major investors at an alarming rate. Essentially, Moderna’s promise of “revolutionizing” medicine and the remarkable salesmanship and fund-raising capabilities of the company’s top executive, Stéphane Bancel, were the main forces keeping it afloat. In the years leading up to the COVID-19 crisis, Moderna’s promises—despite Bancel’s efforts—rang increasingly hollow, as the company’s long-standing penchant for extreme secrecy meant that—despite nearly a decade in business—it had never been able to definitively prove that it could deliver the “revolution” it had continually assured investors was right around the corner.

This was compounded by major issues with patents held by a hostile competitor that threatened Moderna’s ability to turn a profit on anything it might manage to take to market, as well as major issues with its mRNA delivery system that led them to abandon any treatment that would require more than one dose because of toxicity concerns. The latter issue, though largely forgotten and/or ignored by media today, should be a major topic in the COVID-19 booster debate, given that there is still no evidence that Moderna ever resolved the toxicity issue that arose in multi-dose products.

In this first installment of a two-part series, the dire situation in which Moderna found itself immediately prior to the emergence of COVID-19 is discussed in detail, revealing that Moderna—very much like the now disgraced company Theranos—had long been a house of cards with sky-high valuations completely disconnected from reality. Part 2 will explore how that reality would have come crashing down sometime in 2020 or 2021 were it not for the advent of the COVID-19 crisis and Moderna’s subsequent partnership with the US government and the highly unusual processes involving its vaccine’s development and approval. Despite the emergence of real-world data challenging the claims that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, Moderna’s booster is being rushed through by some governments, while others have recently banned the vaccine’s use in young adults and teens due to safety concerns.

As this two-part series will show, safety concerns about Moderna were known well before the COVID crisis, yet they have been ignored by health authorities and the media during the crisis itself. In addition, in order to stave off collapse, Moderna must keep selling its COVID-19 vaccine for years to come. In other words, without the approval of its booster, which has caused great controversy even among the country’s top vaccine officials, Moderna faces a massive financial reckoning. While the COVID-19 crisis threw the company a lifeboat, the administration of its COVID-19 vaccine, in which the US government has now invested nearly $6 billion, must continue into the foreseeable future for the bailout to be truly successful.

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Yup, it’s a horse drug. Priceless.

Barron’s behind paywall:
Beware of the new Merck drug: Wall Street Cheered Merck’s Covid Pill. Some Scientists Are Highlighting Its Potential Dangers. Researchers say the drug could integrate itself into patients’ DNA, theoretically leading to cancer. Merck says its tests show that isn’t an issue.

Molnupiravir Was Made Possible By Government-funded Innovation (STAT)

The story behind molnupiravir is intriguing and a testament to government-funded innovation. Molnupiravir, also known as EIDD-2801 or MK-4482, came out of Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory (DRIVE), a not-for-profit LLC owned by Emory University. It had previously demonstrated broad-spectrum activity against other viruses such as influenza, Ebola, and the Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. The work goes back to 2004, when Emory researchers were studying a related compound known as EIDD-1931/NHC. Before it was tested for Covid-19, EIDD-2801 had accrued millions of dollars of federal funding. In 2019, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) gave the Emory Institute for Drug Development a $16 million contract to test the drug for influenza.

It had previously garnered funding from several other NIAID grants, as well as funding from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), as disclosed by Emory. When attention turned to Covid-19, Emory received pledges of more than $30 million from NIAID and the Department of Defense to cover development of the drug. Jumping on an opportunity to develop a promising drug therapy for Covid-19, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics licensed the drug from DRIVE in March 2020. Ridgeback was founded by Wayne and Wendy Holman, both former investment managers. Within just three months, Ridgeback licensed worldwide rights for EIDD-2801 for Covid-19 to Merck, for which Ridgeback received an undisclosed upfront payment plus milestone payments and shared profits.

But before signing on with Merck, Ridgeback had tried to negotiate a deal with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), one that was specifically mentioned in the explosive whistleblower complaint by Rick Bright, the former director of BARDA. In his complaint, Bright wrote that George Painter, the CEO of the Emory Institute for Drug Development, and Ridgeback cofounder Wendy Holman sought a contract first from ASPR Next and then from BARDA to develop EIDD-2801 for $100 million, and they personally lobbied the authority to get more financial aid. BARDA denied the request due to a lack of adequate documentation for the request. Even before 2020, Bright had been reluctant to give BARDA funding to EIDD-2801, saying they already had $30 million of support from NIAID and the Department of Defense.

Merck eventually backed Ridgeback and took on development of the drug. Molnupiravir then received even more federal funding: In September 2021, BARDA procured 1.7 million courses of the five-day regimen for $1.2 billion, or $700 per treatment course.

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Exhaustive study by Jessica Rose and Peter McCullough.

Myocarditis Adverse Events in VAERS (SD)

The fact that the VAERS reporting of myocarditis is 6X higher in 15-year-olds following dose 2 may be indicative of a cause-effect relationship. If we assume that following dose 1, a certain percentage of healthy young males who lack co-morbidities or co-factors experience cardiac-related AEs mild enough so as not to dissuade them from receiving dose 2 (ie: pallor, chest pain and shortness of breath, for example), then it is not difficult to imagine that they may have been experiencing symptoms of myocarditis. If a percentage of young males had experienced primary damage to the heart as a result of inflammation following dose 1, then dose 2 may have induced a much more noticeable clinical impact, or cardiac ‘insult’.


In other words, these young males may receive a definitive diagnosis of myocarditis only following dose 2. What this implies, based on these assumptions, is that if there is a causal relationship then it might manifest with overlooked/unreported AEs following dose 1 and a diagnosis of myocarditis following dose 2. It is noteworthy that ‘Vaccine-induced myocarditis’ was in fact used as the descriptor by medical professionals as the reason for the myocarditis in the VAERS database. During phase III clinical trials for the mRNA COVID-19 products, safety was assessed based on a maximum observation period of 6 months. This is not adequate to assess long-term safety outcomes as it is a requirement, even in an accelerated timeline setting, to spend up to 9 months in Phase III trials.

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Karl’s take on that study.

Stop This NOW (Denninger)

VAERS is known to materially under-report adverse events. We do not know what the multiplication factor for these findings is as a consequence of that. Note that in the context of all prior years this basically never happens statistically. The average over the three previous years associated with any vaccination is four. Further, an extraordinary level of cardiac adverse events are associated with these jabs. This is not uncommon or “rare” as claimed; there are in fact, as of July 9th, nearly 130,000 such reports for Covid-19 jabs. If we accept the CDC’s numbers for the number of Americans jabbed this puts the rate of cardiac adverse events are right around one in a hundred! What’s nasty is that while the myocarditis incidence is skewed heavily toward males under 30 the cardiac incidence is not; it is centered in the 20-70 range, or roughly “right up the middle” for the people in the nation as a whole.

Indeed, given the known under-reporting in VAERS a 1-in-100 incidence for a category of serious adverse events is extraordinarily significant. There is every reason to believe we may be causing cardiac injury to as many as one in 25 people who get these shots! Whether those injuries spontaneously resolve without permanent compromise or worse, degenerate progression is completely unknown as nobody is following up these individual cases to measure blood levels (e.g. troponins, EKGs, etc.) in an attempt to determine whether these events are transient or result in permanent impairment or worse. “The only way to understand how common myocarditis is after COVID-19 vaccination, is to perform a prospective cohort study where all vaccinated individuals undergo clinical assessment, ECG, and troponin measurement at regular intervals post-administration.”

Which is not being done, on purpose. Incidentally the markers indicating potential trouble were present in the original studies. They were not followed up and the reason for not doing is obvious: It would have prevented issuance of the EUAs on the original desired schedule. As a result the firms involved and the FDA deliberately ignored that signal in the original studies and we have now jabbed somewhere around 200 million Americans — and may have screwed as many as several million of them with irreversible, or even worse degenerate cardiac damage. We do not know because we intentionally did not look. “COVID-19 injectable products are novel and have a genetic, pathogenic mechanism of action causing uncontrolled expression of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein within human cells. When you combine this fact with the temporal relationship of AE occurrence and reporting, biological plausibility of cause and effect, and the fact that these data are internally and externally consistent with emerging sources of clinical data, it supports a conclusion that the COVID-19 biological products are deterministic for the myocarditis cases observed after injection.”

Again, as we knew and as I have documented before these jabs were first released for widespread use — and again, deliberately ignored. While this paper describes a specific risk with regard to myocarditis in young people the larger issue of cardiac events must not be ignored. While it is certainly true that it in healthy young people the risk from Covid-19 infection itself is minuscule and thus appears on the data to be outweighed by the risks of the jab even without accounting for incomplete reporting in my opinion the 900lb Gorilla in the china shop does not simply lie there.

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It’s a sales job. Always has been.

The Cult of the Vaccine Neurotic (Taibbi)

Yesterday, I ran a story that had nothing to do with vaccines, about the seeming delay of the development of a drug called molnupiravir (see the above segment with the gracious hosts of The Hill: Rising for more). In the time it took to report and write that piece, conventional wisdom turned against the drug, which is now suspected of ivermectinism and other deviationist, anti-vax tendencies, in the latest iteration of our most recent collective national mania — the Cult of the Vaccine Neurotic. The speed of the change was incredible. Just a week ago, on October 1st, the pharmaceutical giant Merck issued a terse announcement that quickly became big news. Molnupiravir, an experimental antiviral drug, “reduced the risk of hospitalization or death” of Covid-19 patients by as much as 50%, according to a study.

The “first draft of history” stories that rushed out in the ensuing minutes and hours were almost uniformly positive. AP called the news a “potentially major advance in efforts to fight the pandemic,” while National Geographic quoted a Yale specialist saying, “Having a pill that would be easy for people to take at home would be terrific.” Another interesting early reaction came from Time: Vaccines will be the way out of the pandemic, but not everyone around the world is immunized yet, and the shots aren’t 100% effective in protecting people from getting infected with the COVID-19 virus. So antiviral drug treatments will be key to making sure that people who do get infected don’t get severely ill. This is what news looks like before propagandists get their hands on it. Time writer Alice Park’s lede was sensible and clear. If molnupiravir works — a big if, incidentally — it’s good news for everyone, since not everyone is immunized, and the vaccines aren’t 100% effective anyway. As even Vox put it initially, molnupiravir could “help compensate for persistent gaps in Covid-19 vaccination coverage.”

Within a day, though, the tone of coverage turned. Writers began stressing a Yeah, but approach, as in, “Any new treatment is of course good, but get your fucking shot.” A CNN lede read, “A pill that could potentially treat Covid-19 is a ‘game-changer,’ but experts are emphasizing that it’s not an alternative to vaccinations.” The New York Times went with, “Health officials said the drug could provide an effective way to treat Covid-19, but stressed that vaccines remained the best tool.” If you’re thinking it was only a matter of time before the mere fact of molnupiravir’s existence would be pitched in headlines as actual bad news, you’re not wrong: Marketwatch came out with “‘It’s not a magic pill’: What Merck’s antiviral pill could mean for vaccine hesitancy” the same day Merck issued its release. The piece came out before we knew much of anything concrete about the drug’s effectiveness, let alone whether it was “magic.”

Bloomberg’s morose “No, the Merck pill won’t end the pandemic” was released on October 2nd, i.e. one whole day after the first encouraging news of a possible auxiliary treatment whose most ardent supporters never claimed would end the pandemic. This article said the pill might be cause to celebrate, but warned its emergence “shouldn’t be cause for complacency when it comes to the most effective tool to end this pandemic: vaccines.” Bloomberg randomly went on to remind readers that the unrelated drug ivermectin is a “horse de-worming agent,” before adding that if molnupiravir ends up “being viewed as a solution for those who refuse to vaccinate,” the “Covid virus will continue to persist.”

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“Your hospital is reluctant to change their well-established protocols. Most of your intubated patients are dying. What do you do?”

The Problems With Censoring Doctors Over Their COVID-19 Stances (RCS)

Everyone has a right to their opinion. The question is: does everyone have a right to voice their opinion? Increasingly, in these strange times, it seems that we physicians have the right to voice only certain opinions, when it comes to discussing Covid-19. Wanting to hit the mute button on physicians who choose to challenge the public health narrative, especially in regard to vaccination for Covid-19, is understandably tempting. We carry a bit more authority than lawyers or statisticians when we share our thoughts about medical matters; and quite a few physicians seem to have little interest in toeing the party line. However, appealing as it might be to silence these voices, succumbing to the temptation of censorship might end up costing our society more than it gains.

Imagine this: you’re a physician in charge of opening an intensive care unit in New York City for Covid-19 patients in March 2020 as the disease is tearing through the city. You notice that the standard protocols your hospital follows for intubated patients seem to be failing, perhaps injuring, your patients with Covid-19. Rumblings from Chinese intensivists, and publications from Italian physician Luciano Gattitoni, imply that intubation and ventilator management should be reconsidered in this new disease. Your hospital is reluctant to change their well-established protocols. Most of your intubated patients are dying. What do you do? Dr Cameron Kyle-Sidell experienced this dilemma — and then posted a video on YouTube on March 31, 2020, watched nearly a million times, in which he described his experiences caring for Covid-19 patients in respiratory failure.

In the video, Kyle-Sidell shared that existing treatment protocols for patients with severe pneumonia did not seem to apply to Covid-19 patients with dangerously low oxygen levels — they could be intubated later, and their lungs were less stiff and required lower ventilation pressures, than typical severe pneumonia patients. His warning was part of an alarm that was raised by others, as well, which did indeed lead to a rapid shift in management of severely ill Covid-19 patients. He also ended up stepping down from his leadership of the ICU due to disagreement with hospital management; and some of those hundreds of thousands of viewers of his YouTube video concluded that his perhaps poorly-worded comparison of Covid-19 lung disease to high altitude sickness was cause to consider the pandemic a hoax.

Was Dr Kyle-Sidell a hero for sticking his neck out and challenging the prevailing dogma, in a sincere attempt to improve outcomes for severely ill Covid-19 patients? Or should his video have been censored, and perhaps his medical license threatened, for questioning the conventional narrative in ways that could be co-opted by conspiracy theorists?

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“..without an actual policy or regulation visibly in place, state attorneys general cannot file a lawsuit or request an injunction..”

Biden Keeps Pushing Nonexistent Worker Vaccine Mandate (CTH)

Joe Biden did it again today. A month after the first announcement, the White House occupant claimed again a Dept of Labor rule (via OSHA) is forthcoming, yet no such process appears to be taking place. This ploy now seems very purposeful, because without an actual policy or regulation visibly in place, state attorneys general cannot file a lawsuit or request an injunction. As long as Biden keeps threatening a DOL worker vaccination rule sometime in the future, many employers will take action to require worker vaccination. This seems to be the actual strategy; bolstered by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki caught off-guard last week when asked about it. Psaki had no idea how to answer the question about any OSHA activity not taking place.

Obviously Psaki didn’t expect the question, but it was also obvious that no background conversation had ever taken place amid the White House communication team. Perhaps responding to an awakening on that issue, Joe Biden gave a speech today begging people to get vaccinated and again warning that a federal vaccine mandate for all workers was coming: TRANSCRIPT – […] The Labor Department is going to shortly issue an emergency rule — which I asked for several weeks ago, and they’re going through the process — to require all employees [employers] with more than 100 people, whether they work for the federal government or not — this is within a — in the purview of the Labor Department — to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or face testing at least once a week. In total, this Labor Department vaccination requirement will cover 100 million Americans, about two thirds of all the people who work in America. These requirements work. […] And as the Business Roundtable and others told me when I announced the first requirement, that encouraged businesses to feel they could come in and demand the same thing of their employees.”

Biden then went on to praise companies who are doing it on their own. Others are starting to notice as this article in the Federalist notes: […] According to several sources, so far it appears no such mandate has been sent to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs yet for approval. The White House, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Department of Labor haven’t released any official guidance for the alleged mandate. There is no executive order. There’s nothing but press statements. Despite what you may have been falsely led to believe by the media fantasy projection machine, press statements have exactly zero legal authority.

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“The primacy of constitutional law over other sources of law results directly from the Constitution of the Republic of Poland..”

Poland’s Top Court Rules Polish Law Takes Presedence Over The EU (ZH)

In a stinging rebuke to Europe’s unelected bureaucrats, and a major escalation in the rule of law crisis between Warsaw and Brussels, Poland’s constitutional court ruled on Thursday that Polish law can take precedence over EU law amid an ongoing dispute between the European bloc and the eastern European member state. The decision by the Constitutional Tribunal came after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki requested a review of a decision by the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ) that gave the bloc’s law primacy. Two out of 14 judges on the panel dissented from the majority opinion. “The attempt by the European Court of Justice to involve itself with Polish legal mechanisms violates … the rules that give priority to the constitution and rules that respect sovereignty amid the process of European integration,” the ruling said, in an outcome that could have wide-reaching consequences for Europe when the next crisis hits.

Meanwhile, Brussels considers the Constitutional Tribunal illegitimate due to the political influence imposed upon Poland’s judiciary by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). As the FT’s Henry Foy notes, it is “Hard to overstate the importance of this ruling.” He goes on to note that “Poland is *the* EU success story of eastern enlargement, and the biggest recipient – by a long long way – of EU taxpayer money since 2004. And now it is saying that it refuses to recognize a fundamental part of the whole project.” As DW reports, the court had looked specifically at the compatibility of provisions from EU treaties, which are used by the European Commission to justify having a say in the rule of law in member states, with Poland’s constitution.

A ruling by the ECJ in March said that the EU can force member states to disregard certain provisions in national law, including constitutional law. The ECJ says that Poland’s recently implemented procedure for appointing members of its Supreme Court amounts to a violation of EU law. The ruling from the ECJ could potentially force Poland to repeal parts of the controversial judicial reform. Meanwhile, the EU is withholding billions of euros of aid for post-pandemic rebuilding in Poland over concerns that the rule of law is being degraded in the country. “The primacy of constitutional law over other sources of law results directly from the Constitution of the Republic of Poland,” PiS government spokesman Piotr Muller wrote on Twitter after the court’s decision. “Today (once again) this has been clearly confirmed by the Constitutional Tribunal.”

However, the EPP group, the center-right bloc in the European Parliament to which PiS belongs, come out strongly against the court’s ruling: “It’s hard to believe the Polish authorities and the PiS Party when they claim that they don’t want to put an end to Poland’s membership of the EU. Their actions go in the opposite direction. Enough is enough,” Jeroen Lenaers, MEP and spokesperson for the group, said. “The Polish Government has lost its credibility. This is an attack on the EU as a whole,” he added. Previously, the European Parliament called on Morawiecki to cancel the court case in a resolution passed last month. It stressed the “fundamental nature of primacy of EU law as a cornerstone principle of EU law”, which however now is put in doubt.

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Scapegoat?

“Schulte, who had worked at an elite CIA hacking unit, said that whoever leaked the Vault 7 documents “deserved to be executed” and that “no traitors ever came from Texas”..”

Prosecution Of Alleged WikiLeaks Vault 7 Source Hits Multiple Roadblocks (Y!)

The prosecution of the former CIA operative accused of providing WikiLeaks with the biggest theft of agency documents in U.S. history continues to be mired in delays and legal issues, drawing out a painful chapter for the agency. WikiLeaks’ publication in 2017 of documents that included CIA hacking tools, which it called Vault 7, so enraged some senior officials, including then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, that it sparked discussions within the agency and the Trump White House about kidnapping or even killing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a Yahoo News investigation. The first trial of Joshua Schulte, the former CIA programmer accused of transmitting the documents to WikiLeaks, ended in a hung jury in March 2020. (Schulte was, however, convicted of related minor charges and remains jailed.)

It was a stinging defeat for federal prosecutors in New York’s Southern District, who vowed to retry the former agency operative. The retrial, which has already been repeatedly postponed, was last scheduled for late October. In September, Schulte, who is now representing himself in court, asked for another delay. The parties are now supposed to confer on a new trial date by Nov. 1, as Inner City Press first reported, but it is unclear precisely when the alleged WikiLeaks source will face another jury. WikiLeaks began publishing Vault 7 documents in March 2017. The leak was “instantly devastating,” said the prosecutor in the case, causing “critical intelligence gathering operations all over the world” to come to “a crashing halt.” Agency investigators later called the leak “the largest data loss in CIA history.”

Before WikiLeaks began publishing the Vault 7 materials, the CIA had no idea they had even been taken. The leak set off a furious search for the culprit. The CIA would soon determine that the files had been stolen in the spring of 2016 by Schulte, a disgruntled agency employee who quit his job within the CIA four months before WikiLeaks began releasing Vault 7 materials. FBI officials, who code-named Schulte “Kinetic Piranha” or “Kinetic Panda,” confronted him in March 2017 in the New York City office lobby of his new employer, Bloomberg LP. In subsequent interviews with bureau officials, Schulte, who had worked at an elite CIA hacking unit, said that whoever leaked the Vault 7 documents “deserved to be executed” and that “no traitors ever came from Texas” (he is a native of Lubbock, Texas).

Schulte has continued to deny any wrongdoing. Interviewing him at a restaurant across from Grand Central Terminal, FBI agents presented Schulte with a grand jury subpoena and a separate subpoena to seize his phone. Bureau personnel then also executed a search warrant of his apartment. Schulte was first arrested in August 2017 after investigators said they had found “approximately ten thousand images and videos of child pornography” while searching his electronic devices. In June 2018, prosecutors charged him with providing the materials to WikiLeaks.

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Veritas Pfizer fetal tissue

 

 

 

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