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Western “Thinking” on Nuclear Weapons

Apr 262023
 
 April 26, 2023  Posted by at 5:00 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  10 Responses »


Mark Chagall I and the village 1911

 

 

My good friend Wayne brings up some interesting questions about weapons, in the view of the current Ukraine conflict. Are nuclear weapons the most terrifying ones we know? Or have hypersonic precision weapons taken that “crown”? The answer is not all that obvious.

There is a persistent rumor that sometime in March, Russia hit a secret NATO base deep underground near Kiev with a hypersonic Kinzhal missile and took out some 300 people, including a bunch of high-placed NATO commanders. I have neither seen this confirmed nor, perhaps more importantly, denied. But Russia has no reason to boast about it, and the US has even less reason to acknowledge it happened.

What we do know is that US/NATO (or even China) doesn’t have these weapons, and Russia does. And that, from what I’ve read, partly has to do with the fact that since the missiles move at speeds of up to Mach 15 (15x speed of sound), they need a special heat resistant coating that only Russia has been able to develop. Moreover, these hypersonic missiles are not just much faster than any other missile, they are also far better at hitting precision targets. Try hitting a bunker 60 meters or more underground.

Here’s Wayne for some philosophy:

 

 

Wayne Hall:

The 1980s were the decade of the Non-aligned Anti-Nuclear Weapons Movement. The Non-aligned movement’s political line differed from that of the Communist-Party controlled anti-nuclear movements, which took their lead from Soviet diplomacy. The Non-aligned current had some party-political cover from Eurocommunist parties. It said “there are no good and bad nuclear weapons”. Implication: Soviet nuclear weapons are bad. To be consistent the movement should have called for Soviet nuclear disarmament when the USSR disintegrated, particularly because it was not clear at first whether Yeltsin would be better or worse than Gorbachev. Some of us did indeed call for unilateral Soviet nuclear disarmament.

NATO policy was for removal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine. But not from Russia. Why not from Russia? Well, for a start, that would mean abolition of the Russian nuclear bogy. What justification could there then be for NATO’s nuclear weapons? The Non-Aligned Anti-Nuclear Weapons Movement was clearly confused. Why were they not raising the demand for nuclear disarmament of Russia? They had spent the nineteen eighties ridiculing ideas of “nuclear deterrence”.

Yeltsin turned out to be (or at least to appear) even more open to ideas of nuclear disarmament of Russia than Gorbachev had been. The Non-Aligned Anti-Nuclear Weapons Movement called out NATO for fraud. Even official spokespersons acknowledged that nuclear weapons were “more of political than of military utility”. In other words they were useless, except for politicians (and journalists). The Swedes had recognized the uselessness when the nuclear hawk Olof Palme changed his stripes and became an anti-nuclear activist, presiding over unilateral nuclear disarmament of Sweden.

A demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament of Russia would have been a brilliant poke in the eye for the Tory smartypants who were always jeering: “If you want unilateral nuclear disarmament, recommend it to the Soviets!” Instead of raising the demand, some anti-nuclear activists simply started pointing out to each other that the Cold War is over and this should be recognized. Others didn’t do even that.

Since March 2023, the unnecessary character of Russian nuclear weapons has been confirmed. In March a provocation was staged inside Russia (by Ukraine? By NATO?) with civilians including children being killed and injured. Putin declared that there would be retaliation, and indeed, there was, within days. A command bunker in Ukraine four hundred feet underground (too deep then for run-of-the-mill bunker-busting technology) was hit by a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile and hundreds of dignitaries and high-ranking NATO personnel were allegedly killed. The media were pretty silent about it. And pretty soon the gaslighting started.

If this Kinzhal strike typifies the code of ethics that Russia intends to follow in its war making, the superfluous character of Russian nuclear weapons is confirmed. Attacks on civilians are punished by attacks on the top leadership of the side that resorts to them. The media propaganda machine is now bending over backwards to scream that the Kinzhals are “nuclear capable”. So what? Is a nuclear weapon needed to wipe out political leadership in a bunker? It is said that the United States has begun testing its own hypersonic missiles but the tests so far have failed. Will this failure be the prelude to a new arms race, or to abandonment of the 20th century mode of conducting wars particularly from 1914 onwards? The twentieth century mode of mass politics and mass slaughter of civilians?

When one studies the ideas of Hitler apologists it is easy to come to the conclusion that Hitler’s key intellectual mistake was to assume that the category “white people” includes Germans. The Boers had to learn the same lesson in South Africa, I suppose. Given this and given the assumptions of “nuclear deterrence”, which is an acceptable doctrine for the white people of NATO but not for the white people of Russia unless they face the “fact” that they too require to be “deterred” from destroying all life on planet earth, WOKE notions that “only white people can be racist” become comprehensible and the Hitlerian misreadings of the Coudenhove-Kalergi prediction/recommendation(?) of a world of mulattos following the extinction of “white people”, elevatable into a praiseworthy program for the future of this world.

If racism cannot be overcome intellectually there is obviously no alternative to overcoming it, or “trying to”, biologically. Is there? It seems to me that the logic of Russia’s development of hypersonic missiles, particularly given the way they appear to be using them, is the opposite of the motives according to which nuclear weapons were initially developed: i.e. elaboration of a mass “shock and awe” effect. Hypersonic missiles apparently aim at introducing military precision: graduated retaliation, which so far has been used to retaliate for attacks on the civilians of one’s own side. But the retaliation has been strikingly disproportionate, suggesting that one is planning to really stigmatize cowardly attacks on unarmed civilians. In effect stigmatize modern mass destruction warfare.

If it is true that “the West” is behind in this hypersonic missiles technology, how is it going to respond? Through embarking on a hypersonic missiles arms race? If it does to Russia what Russia has just done to it in Ukraine, there is a widespread view that this will trigger generalized nuclear war, which “the West” claims not to want. So what would be the purpose of getting ahead in hypersonic missiles technology? Public relations? Being first for the sake of being able to say that one is first?

It is said that nuclear weapons serve political more than military purposes, but those political purposes have to do with the “shock and awe” effect, not the ability to launch a precision strike at the nerve centre of the enemy (and so trigger the nuclear war one supposedly seeks to avoid). Will “the West” think this through or will it just go ahead anyway and “try to catch up and overtake”? Is “the West” thinking coherently about nuclear weapons?

 

 

 

 

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Neutrality

Mar 162022
 
 March 16, 2022  Posted by at 5:45 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  23 Responses »


John Atkinson Grimshaw A moonlit lane 1874

 

 

It’s almost slapstick that people call for Putin to be hauled before some international court for war crimes, but it’s true; they do. It tells you what you need to know about your media, and then some. Because, whether you know it or not, the last 4-5 America presidents have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan etc etc. Just not in Ukraine. Wait, that’s probably not true either. The estimated 15,000 deaths in the Donbass over the past 8 years would likely never have happened without some US help.

And we just see it all as par for the course. The “peace” negotiations between Ukraine and Russia look hopeful, but are they? Russia has always been very clear in what it wants from Ukraine, and that goes back way longer than the start of the “special military operation” 3 weeks ago, or Maidan in 2014. It goes back at least to the fall of the Berlin wall, but it’s really much earlier than that. How about 1945, and then throw in Brzezinski, and Wolfowitz, and Kissinger, and why not Mackinder as well?

But don’t let’s make it a book. To simplify, stop at 1991, when Yeltsin became president of Russia, with an alleged 1000 CIA operatives in his Kremlin tow. The Americans thought they had it made. That the deal with Gorbachev, in which he OK’d German reunification on the condition that NATO boundaries would stop right there, no longer mattered. But in 2000 Yeltsin made Putin his successor. I like the notion that the west promoted Putin because they thought he would do exactly what they wanted. But I also like the more romantic version that Yeltsin installed Putin because he felt remorse over selling out his country, and thought Putin might correct that. Fast forward to the “peace” negotiations. What Russia wants is crystal clear. As Robert Barnes put it:

What we see today is they are discussing “neutrality”. But that can still mean different things. Apparently, Russia has suggested a Sweden or Austria status, but Ukraine doesn’t find that safe enough. The idea becomes that if you are truly neutral, why would you need an army? The world’s most neutral country ever, Switzerland still has “something”, as Swissinfo says: “The Swiss Army largely is a non-career militia. Switzerland has compulsory military service for male citizens, though this and indeed the role of the army altogether have recently been called into question.”

That seems close to what Russia would seek for Ukraine. But why can’t Ukraine decide its status for itself? Well, 1/ it was part of Russia for a very long time, 2/ a lot of Russians live in the country, 3/ Russia doesn’t want NATO on its welcoming mat, 4/ it has allowed US/NATO to use its territory for activities that Russia sees as threatening to itself. Like 30 biolabs. That sort of thing. Oh, and 5/ they share a border.

Both sides said today that the talks appear to go well, there’s room for compromise, and Zelensky said yesterday that Ukraine won’t join NATO. And then today he asks the US Congress (both chambers) for more guns and bombs and planes and also a no-fly-zone, though he knows, and everybody knows, that it would be an all-out war declaration, reaching far beyond the borders of Ukraine. And gets cheered for it. But how does he -and they- think that went down in Russia? How is that supposed to solve the problem, and to end the military operation? “We need your help to start WWII!”. This is Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined! Applause, applause!

In that speech, he was also addressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of whom we had a clip earlier today, that really should also make you wonder: how do the Russians see this, or the Chinese? We have tons of clips from Joe Biden exhibiting very strange behavior, for everyone to see, and now this from the 2nd most powerful person in Washington?! At a moment in time when one -even mistaken- push of a button could unleash hell on earth, are you sure a couple of feeble octogenarians are the best people for the job?

 

 

Seriously, I know that Americans see this as normal behavior, but you should really ask yourself how the rest of the world sees it. How is Nancy Pelosi’s performance in that clip not something that would scare the heebees out of you, if you’re in Beijing or Moscow, or any capital city for that matter? To put a dark view on it: why would she care about the future? It’s not hers…

Zelensky is hailed as a hero, because he’s an easy on the eye person that’s ideal for the part, But that is the problem: Zelensky is an actor who plays a hero. What the situation needs is not Zelensky or Pelosi or god forbid Joe Biden (he’s flying to Europe next week). Or, you know, Jake Sullivan or Victoria Nuland.

What it needs is people like Lavrov, maybe Jimmy Carter, statesmen, there must be some sane people left in the US. We need people who genuinely seek peace, not trigger happy neocons and warmongers, on either side, on whatever side.

I think neutrality is possible, even if the Americans won’t like it and Zelensky is their puppet, simply because it’s by far the best, and quite likely the only solution. No Nukes is easy; that was never an option. So is No NATO, as Zelensky himself has already conceded. The crux may be No Nazis. Because Russia will want to make sure of that, before they even think of leaving. Theoretically, Ukraine can maintain an army (of sorts), but that would still be likely to have Azov et al elements.

The only acceptable way -to Moscow- would then be to install a court and drag all the “nazis” in front of it. But that would take a very long time, and the Russians would have to stay in the country for the duration. I wonder how they think that Gordian knot can be cut.

As for the news about Russian soldiers firing at people waiting in line for bread, or shooting at a convoy of people fleeing a city, or bombing a theater where 100s of people were sheltering, look we only get western news. And Russians are doing propaganda too, no doubt, but we can’t see that anymore after their news channels were banned over here. Don’t believe a word you hear or see, without solid proof. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians and children does not appear to be their MO. They could have flattened the entire country in just 3 days if it was.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle December 11 2021

Dec 112021
 
 December 11, 2021  Posted by at 10:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Louis Anquetin Avenue de Clichy, Five O’Clock in the Evening 1887

 

• 4 In Every 5 Covid-19 Deaths In England Since August Fully Vaccinated (DE)
• B.1.1.529 Escapes Majority Of SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)
• Epidemiology of Myocarditis And Pericarditis Following mRNA Vaccines In Ontario, Canada (medRxiv)
• Two Jabs Offer Little Protection Against Omicron Infection, UK Data Shows (G.)
• The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here (Atlantic)
• Austria To Fine Unvaxed Citizens Up To £12,000 A Year (Sun)
• Belgian Court Rules Enforcing Covid Vaccine Pass Is Illegal (Metro)
• Yes Folks, It Really IS Over (Denninger)
• The Air Coming Out (Kunstler)
• Alix Mayer Is Vaccine Injured, But Not From The Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)
• Putin Says Russian Government Was Swarming With CIA Officers (RT)
• US DOJ Wins Court Case Seeking Julian Assange Extradition (CTH)

 

 

 

 

Canadian Federation of Independent Business

 

 

“Vaccine Passports have absolutely nothing to do with protecting public health, and instead everything to do with controlling the nation.”

• 4 In Every 5 Covid-19 Deaths In England Since August Fully Vaccinated (DE)

Serious questions need to be answered as to why Boris Johnson’s Government have decided to restrict the freedoms of the unvaccinated population through the introduction of Vaccine Passports, when the latest official data shows that the vaccinated population have accounted for 3 in every 5 Covid-19 cases, 3 in every 5 Covid-19 hospitalisations, and 4 in every 5 Covid-19 deaths, in England since August 16th 2021.

During a national Covid-19 briefing that took place on Tuesday December 8th, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced that ‘Plan B’ would be implemented in England from Wednesday December 15th, which would entail ‘working from home’ (if you can) orders, and the introduction of Vaccine Passports. The reason given for the commencement of ‘Plan B’ is that it has to be done to protect the public from the alleged new Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. A variant which as of December 11th, has failed to cause a single fatality in the UK, with just several hundred cases allegedly being confirmed.


A new law will come into effect from Wednesday December 15th, which will state that Vaccine Passports will become mandatory for entry to nightclubs and other large venues, including Premier League football matches and concerts. We’re told they will be required for indoor settings of 500 people or more, outdoor settings of 4,000 people or more, and any setting with 10,000 attendees or more. There will be many in England who believe Vaccine Passports are the answer to their prayers. Two years of misinformation, and disinformation mixed with propaganda published by the mainstream media can do that to people. But unfortunately the official data published by the UK Government proves that they are far from it, and suggests Vaccine Passports have absolutely nothing to do with protecting public health, and instead everything to do with controlling the nation.

The above chart proves that the fully vaccinated population have accounted for the majority of Covid-19 deaths every single month since August 2021, with things really taking a turn for the worse in October. The highest number of Covid-19 deaths in single four week period among the fully vaccinated population has been 3,284, whereas the highest number of Covid-19 deaths among the unvaccinated population in a four week period has been just 850. That’s a 286% difference.


The official data shows the vaccinated population have accounted for 56% of Covid-19 cases, 63% of hospitalisations, and 80% of deaths over the past 16 weeks in England. It’s quite clear that the jabs do not prevent infection or transmission, but they are alleged to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death.

However, if this were the case then should we not be seeing a graph that looks more like this? So why aren’t we? It could have something to do with the fact that the data suggests the Covid-19 injections are actually increasing the risk of death due to Covid-19 rather than reducing it by the claimed 95%.

Read more …

Chinese research.

• B.1.1.529 Escapes Majority Of SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)

The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) contains 15 mutations on the receptor-binding domain (RBD). How Omicron would evade RBD neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) and humoral immunity requires immediate investigation. Here, we used high-throughput yeast display screening to determine the RBD escaping mutation profiles for 247 human anti-RBD NAbs identified from SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 convalescents and vaccinees. Based on the results, NAbs could be unsupervised clustered into six epitope groups (A-F), which is highly concordant with knowledge-based structural classifications. Strikingly, various single mutations of Omicron could impair NAbs of different epitope groups. Specifically, NAbs in Group A-D, whose epitope overlaps with ACE2-binding motif, are largely escaped by K417N, N440K, G446S, E484A, Q493K, and G496S.


Group E (S309 site) and F (CR3022 site) NAbs, which often exhibit broad sarbecovirus neutralizing activity, are less affected by Omicron, but still, a subset of NAbs are escaped by G339D, S371L, and S375F. Furthermore, B.1.1.529 pseudovirus neutralization and RBD binding assay showed that single mutation tolerating NAbs could also be escaped due to multiple synergetic mutations on their epitopes. In total, over 85% of the tested NAbs are escaped by Omicron. Regarding NAb drugs, LY-CoV016/LY-CoV555 cocktail, REGN-CoV2 cocktail, AZD1061/AZD8895 cocktail, and BRII-196 were escaped by Omicron, while VIR7831 and DXP-604 still function at reduced efficacy. Together, data suggest Omicron could cause significant humoral immune evasion, while NAbs targeting the sarbecovirus conserved region remain most effective. Our results offer instructions for developing NAb drugs and vaccines against Omicron and future variants.

Read more …

Mix and don’t match.

• Epidemiology of Myocarditis And Pericarditis Following mRNA Vaccines In Ontario, Canada (medRxiv)

Increased rates of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been observed. However, little data are available related to product-specific differences, which have important programmatic impacts. The objective of this study was to estimate reporting rates of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccine by product, age, sex, and dose number, as well inter-dose interval. We conducted a population-based cohort study using passive vaccine safety surveillance data. All individuals in Ontario, Canada who received at least one dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine between December 14, 2020 and September 4, 2021 were included. This study was conducted in Ontario, Canada (population: 14.7 million) using the provincial COVID-19 vaccine registry and provincial adverse events following immunization database.

We included all individuals with a reported episode of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccine in the study period. We obtained information on all doses administered in the province to calculate reporting rates. Receipt of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (mRNA-1273 [Moderna Spikevax] or BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty]). Reported rate of myocarditis/pericarditis meeting level 1-3 of the Brighton Collaboration case definitions.

Results There were 19,740,741 doses of mRNA vaccines administered and 297 reports of myocarditis/pericarditis meeting our inclusion criteria. Among these, 69.7% occurred following the second dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and 76.8% occurred in males. The median age of individuals with a reported event was 24 years. The highest reporting rate of myocarditis/pericarditis was observed in males aged 18-24 years following mRNA-1273 as the second dose; the rate in this age group was 5.1 (95% CI 1.9-15.5) times higher than the rate following BNT162b2 as the second dose. Overall reporting rates were higher when the inter-dose interval was shorter (i.e., ≤30 days) for both vaccine products. Among individuals who received mRNA-1273 for the second dose, rates were higher for those who had a heterologous as opposed to homologous vaccine schedule.

Conclusions and Relevance Our results suggest that vaccine product, inter-dose interval and vaccine schedule combinations may play a role in the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis, in addition to age and sex. Certain programmatic strategies could reduce the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis following mRNA vaccines.

Read more …

The MSM is twisting defeat into victory.

The function of Omicron is it allows them to obscure the fact that the vaccines are utter failures, and at the same time to sell more of the same vaccines as boosters.

“The booster is really adding to protection..”

Yeah, and what we don’t say is “..for two weeks..”

• Two Jabs Offer Little Protection Against Omicron Infection, UK Data Shows (G.)

Having two doses of a Covid vaccine offers less defence against symptomatic infection from the Omicron variant than with Delta, experts have said, although a booster jab raises protection considerably. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said Omicron was projected to become the dominant variant of coronavirus in the UK by mid-December, based on current trends. It added that there could be more than a million coronavirus infections by the end of the month. Dr Susan Hopkins, the UKHSA’s chief medical adviser, said: “I think what we’re seeing is that if you’ve had two doses more than three months ago, then it’s not going to prevent you from getting symptomatic disease.” However, a Pfizer/BioNTech booster jab, given after an initial round of either Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer, raised the level of protection, offering 70-75% protection against symptomatic infection.

The findings came as the UK reported 58,194 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday – the highest number of positive cases in a 24-hour period since 9 January – and 120 deaths. A total of 448 Omicron cases were also reported, compared with 249 on Thursday, with the total across the UK to date now standing at 1,265. The UKHSA report offers early insights into the degree of protection the initial two vaccinations may offer against Omicron. The data suggests that people who have had two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab 25 or more weeks ago have far lower protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron than with Delta. While the data suggests such individuals have about 40% protection against Delta at this time point, protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron could be less than 10%. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty around that figure given the small number of people studied and the fact that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was largely given to older or more vulnerable people.


A similar trend was seen for those who have had two doses of the Pfizer jab, with about 60% protection against Delta at 25 or more weeks since the second dose, and just under 40% protection against Omicron at the same time point – although, again, there are uncertainties around the figures. About 44 million people received their second jab at least three months ago, but about 22 million have received a booster since then. Experts have said Omicron infections are doubling every two to three days in the UK, leading to concerns that the variant could overwhelm the NHS if it is as virulent as Delta. In the UK, about 39% of those over 12 years old have had a booster dose, compared with 81% of people having had two doses. “The booster is really adding to protection,” said Dr Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at the UKHSA.

Read more …

The Atlantic, too, continues its sloppy sales job.

“Settings that might have previously seemed safe for vaccinated folks—say, a restaurant or performance venue that strictly checks vaccination status—could become fertile ground for transmission, because the people inside them are more likely to catch and spread the virus.”

• The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here (Atlantic)

The 60 percent of Americans who are fully vaccinated could soon find their lives looking very different. For much of the summer and fall, those who had received two Pfizer or Moderna doses or one Johnson & Johnson shot were told that they were essentially bulletproof, especially if they were young and healthy. But preliminary data from South Africa and Europe now suggest that two vaccine doses alone might still allow for frequent breakthrough infections and rapid spread of the disease—even if hospitalization and death remain unlikely. Getting three shots, or two shots plus a previous bout of COVID, seems to offer more protection. For Saad Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, that’s enough evidence to justify changing the CDC’s definition of full vaccination. “With Omicron and the data emerging, I think there is no reason why we shouldn’t have a pretty strong push for everyone to have boosters,” he told me.

At this point, the CDC has recorded that less than a quarter of adults who are fully vaccinated under the existing definition have gotten a third shot. That leaves about 150 million people who are vaccinated but unboosted. Given that the people in this group are less protected against infection, they’re at greater risk of passing on the disease to unvaccinated or partially vaccinated kids, as well as to unvaccinated or immunologically vulnerable adults. They will also pass the coronavirus more readily among themselves. Settings that might have previously seemed safe for vaccinated folks—say, a restaurant or performance venue that strictly checks vaccination status—could become fertile ground for transmission, because the people inside them are more likely to catch and spread the virus. Indeed, anecdotal reports already suggest that large indoor gatherings of fully vaccinated people can become super-spreader events in the age of Omicron.


Population-level immunity could suffer in another way too, Omer said: People who were previously protected because of a prior infection could now be quite vulnerable to getting reinfected and passing on the disease. In fact, it’s possible that the only parts of the country where community transmission might be blunted are those that faced devastating early waves of the virus and subsequently had strong vaccination rates—mostly a handful of areas in the Northeast. “It’s really very, very challenging to consider how those differences might play out,” Joshua Schiffer, a disease-modeling expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me.

Read more …

The caption for that graph, I kid you not: “Cases have been on the rise in recent months..”

• Austria To Fine Unvaxed Citizens Up To £12,000 A Year (Sun)

Austria will impose criminal fines of up to £12,000 a year if they refuse the Covid vaccination. The move comes amid a shift across much of Europe towards increasingly harsh measures to crack down on vaccine hesitancy amid fears Omicron patients will overwhelm hospitals. Under Austria’s plans to make injections against coronavirus compulsory from February onwards. It comes as Europe’s coronavirus death toll could soar by another 700,000 this winter, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. Austria’s conservative-led government today gave details of its plan to make coronavirus vaccines compulsory, saying it will apply to people 14 and over and holdouts face fines of up to £3,000 every three months.

Roughly 68 per cent of Austria’s population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the lowest rates in western Europe. Many Austrians are sceptical about vaccines, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom Party, the third biggest in parliament. As infections set records three weeks ago, the government announced a fourth national lockdown and said it would make vaccinations compulsory for all, the first European Union country to do so. Minister for constitutional affairs Karoline Edtstadler said: “We do not want to punish people who are not vaccinated. We want to win them over and convince them to get vaccinated.”


The vaccine mandate, which must be approved by parliament, is due to start in February and last through January 2024. Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said: “There will be quarterly vaccination deadlines. “If that is not the case, proceedings will be brought. In regular proceedings, the amount of the fine is 3,600 euros (£3,000). “As an alternative, the authorities have the option to impose a fine in shorter proceedings immediately after the vaccination deadline. Here the amount of the fine is 600 euros.” There will be exemptions for pregnant women and people who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, he added.


Cases have been on the rise in recent months

Read more …

From Dec. 3.

• Belgian Court Rules Enforcing Covid Vaccine Pass Is Illegal (Metro)

A court has ruled a Covid pass in a region of Belgium is unlawful and has fined the district more than £4,000 per day until it stops enforcing it. In the judgement, the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) in Wallonia was called disproportionate and the court suggested it could breach European law, the Brussels Times reported. Since November, the CST has been mandatory in the Walloon Region and the whole of Belgium. People who want to eat in a restaurant or go to the theatre must present a Covid pass, showing vaccination, a negative test, or recent recovery.


Non-profit organisation Notre bon droit (NBD) brought the summary proceedings against Wallonia after contesting the use of the Covid pass before its introduction. NBD founder Isabelle Duchateau said: ‘The court has ruled in our favour by conceding that the CST does not respect the principle of proportionality.’ As well as the daily £4,258 (€5,000) fine, The Walloon Government was ordered to pay NBD’s court costs and will have to ‘rectify’ the situation pending a judgement on the CST’s benefits. But the Walloon Region refused to annul the CST following the judgement and said it would appeal the court’s decision on Wednesday, according to the Brussels Times.

Read more …

Post mandate America.

• Yes Folks, It Really IS Over (Denninger)

And now, as I pointed out, it is time for anyone coerced — whether you caved or not — to press your offense. This action makes clear the last argument Biden’s Administration had was false — and means they will lose. The Senate voted Wednesday to repeal a President Biden-backed federal *****-19 ******* mandate for private businesses. The final vote was 52-48. Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana joined Republicans to vote in favor of the repeal. Yes, the bill will die in the House. Pelosi will never bring it to the floor on a voluntary basis and certainly not on an expedited one with there being no effective forcing mechanism in the House; she knows damn well the majority of Americans do not support mandated vaccination and she’s already screwed in the midterms.

This bill, irrespective of the vote outcome, would turn that into a slaughter and for no purpose, since Biden will veto it anyway if it gets to his desk. While its theoretically possible to force action with a discharge petition that’s unlikely. But for those who argue that this means its a “worthless gesture” by the Senate you’re wrong. If you’re an employer or legal department and argue this you’re going to wind up asset-stripped to your underwear. The Executive has no authority to enact such any such mandate on its own. It has to rely on, and has argued in court multiple times that it was delegated this authority by Congress. That’s the entire foundation on which such a mandate rests — that the enabling law for OSHA permitted this and was explicitly authorized and contemplated, that the FARs governing contracts with the government again explicitly permitted this action as a result of Congressional delegation of said authority and that CMS, likewise, can do it under the Medicare and Medicaid enabling legislation.

That argument just got a cement boot tied to it and tossed into 3,200 feet of water. The Senate action makes clear that the Senate did not concur then, long before this threat was on anyone’s radar and even in the throes of the current pandemic the Senate would not concur to delegate said authority to the Executive. In other words if these laws were on the table today to be passed, complete with this explicit or implicit authority they would not pass the Senate and thus would not become law! The courts will not ignore this. Indeed their rulings thus far have all turned on exactly this point — where is the authority within the Executive, and from what did it derive? This action means the courts don’t even get to the Constitutional question of bodily autonomy; they are now going to rule on the very-clear fact that the Senate has formally, in a recorded vote, disavowed Executive authority to implement any of these mandates.

That’s the beginning and end of it — and now, with that in the bag and in the record of the Senate those employers who have in any way relied on the statements of the government or crafted their concepts based upon same are cooked. Oh sure, there will be those who vehemently want to protest their “wokeness” in this regard but now they have to face the fact that their alleged “justification” has been destroyed and the legal protection it might have afforded them — whether their punitive acts were surcharging employee health insurance or outright firing people — has disappeared in a puff of smoke. The landsharks will be feasting on businesses and the “woke” among them. It’s time to go on offense folks. You were dealt the nuts hand by the Senate. Do not let them off cheaply.

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“..it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed!

• The Air Coming Out (Kunstler)

Has the illustrious Dr. Fauci not just plumb shot his wad now? Made himself — how do you put it delicately — something less than…uh… helpful… in the public health sphere? Worn out his welcome, a little bit? We have been a kind and generous nation through our history, after all, patient to a fault with all sorts of public rascals. I’m sure you would agree: an apology and discreet withdrawal from the scene might buy him a few years of elder peace at some ocean or desert retreat, dandling the grand-kids on his tender lap, even while the prosecutors construct their case… and by then, of course, the spike proteins moiling in the conus arteriosus of his shriveled heart — gift of his own marvelous science project — will have worked their hoodoo and punched his ticket to the great gain-of-function Palookaville up yonder.

Or is he, rather, begging for the rope at the end of the lamp-post now (along with a few thousand other public figures around the world)? I mean… moving the goal-posts yet again the other day right there on CNN with the ever-glowering Kate Bolduan, saying it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed! The horror! I’d calculate that the internet campaign to purchase the aforesaid rope would take about ten seconds flat, including the log-in.

It’s beginning to look like Americans have had enough of this monkey business, losing their livelihoods, their futures, their reasons to live. And now this malignant dwarf of a government witch-doctor wants to come for their children? Homey don’t play that. And, by the way, Omicron is no Darth Vader and Dr. Fauci is no Obi-Wan Kenobi. Omicron is a punk-ass computer iteration of the original “SARS CoV-2” computer model of a frightful pandemic agent engineered to drive the Western advanced nations batshit crazy (literally) so as to distract them from the criminal ineptitude of their financial managers. And now that the virus narrative is unspooling it’s showtime for the terminal financial follies of the age.

[..] CBS-News reports this morning that “household wealth has surged an astonishing $36 trillion.” Our Federal Reserve says so in a 205-page statistics dump. Oh, really? Do you know what that is? It’s called air. Something you can see clean through because the thing that is supposed to be there is not there, namely, what money is supposed to represent. This is the financial narrative, cousin to the virus narrative — making manifest the non-manifest… a ghost story around civilization’s campfire. Any minute now, the air is going to come out of the family rooms in these hypothetical millions of suddenly rich households and the people within will suffocate financially. The New York Times will report them as Covid-19 deaths, I’m sure.

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Haven’t watched the interview yet.

• Alix Mayer Is Vaccine Injured, But Not From The Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)

On December 9, I interviewed Alix Mayer, President, Children’s Health Defense, California Chapter. She’s vaccine injured from a set of vaccines she took prior to a business trip. She’s never fully recovered. Here’s my interview on Rumble. It’s one of the most popular videos I’ve done (over 34,000 views in less than 24 hours with no promotion; all positive reviews).

IMPORTANT: If you are a parent of young kids, have grandkids, or are thinking about ever getting vaccinated again, you will want to watch this video. You will be shocked about what you are not being told. Key things I learned from talking with Alix:

• All the 16 childhood vaccines should be considered unsafe because all the safety data shows that kids are uniformly less healthy after taking the vaccines compared to kids who are not vaccinated at all.

• All the papers published in medical journals documenting the dangers of the vaccines have been revoked and the people who wrote them have lost their jobs. The papers weren’t censored because they were wrong. They were censored so nobody will find out the truth. The papers all showed that kids who avoided the vaccines were significantly healthier than the kids who got vaccinated. The COVID vaccines? They are 1,000 times worse than any of these vaccines.

• The CDC is supposed to be assessing the safety of the children’s vaccines every 2 years. They have never done this. They even admit it. They don’t have any plans to comply with the law. Nobody is holding them accountable. Everyone is looking the other way.

• There has been a huge increase in autism and other disabling conditions after kids take the childhood vaccination schedule. There is no doubt they are linked.

• RFK, Jr. has been trying to get a debate with the CDC for 20 years about the safety of the childhood vaccines. Nobody from the CDC will debate him. They refuse to be put in a situation where they could be asked questions that they don’t want to answer. Someone is hiding in the shadows and it isn’t RFK, Jr.

• Judy Mikovits discovered impurities in the vaccines but they forced out of her job to silence her.

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“Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader..”

• Putin Says Russian Government Was Swarming With CIA Officers (RT)

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Russian government was swarming with CIA workers, and they eventually had to be “cleaned out” and sent back to the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday. Speaking to a meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Putin used the example of Americans within the Russian government to show how foreign countries attempt to interfere in the country’s internal affairs. “In the early 2000s, I had already cleaned everyone out, but in the mid-1990s, we had, as it later turned out, cadres of the US Central Intelligence Agency sitting as advisers and even official employees of the Russian government,” Putin explained. “They were later prosecuted in the United States for violating US law and taking part in privatization while they were CIA employees working for us,” the president claimed.

According to Putin, some American specialists were stationed at Russian nuclear weapons facilities and even sat at a desk with a US flag. “They lived and worked there. They didn’t need such subtle instruments of interference in our political life because they controlled everything anyway,” he continued. This isn’t the first time that Putin has accused America of interfering with Russia’s internal affairs, especially in the immediate aftermath following the fall of the Soviet Union and the privatization of government-owned assets. In 2013, the president claimed that CIA officers worked in the entourage of Anatoly Chubais, the deputy prime minister who oversaw the privatization process. He later went on to become Kremlin chief of staff.


Earlier this year, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia’s parliament, claimed that the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader. Khasbulatov even claimed that Yeltsin would send security officials and heads of departments to the US so the Americans could “examine them” and “give conclusions.”

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Long read by conservative lawyer Sundance focusing on the strong connection between Assange and the failure of Russiagate as grounds for his present treatment.

“..Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation ..”

• US DOJ Wins Court Case Seeking Julian Assange Extradition (CTH)

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative; and knowing that Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation – which included the use of Robert Mueller; it would make sense for corrupt government officials to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange. And that would explain why those same government officials, willfully or by direction, would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017. Within three months of the grand jury seating (Nov/Dec 2017), the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA then sat on the indictment while the Mueller/Weissman probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed As a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is the fulcrum point that structurally underpins the entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative. However, this important claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange’s on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment (Peter Strzok); and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from another Michael Sussmann partner, Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike. Yes, another DNC contractor and collaborator with the Clinton campaign. The CIA always held a massive conflict of self-interest problem surrounding the Russian hacking claim as it pertains to their own activity in 2016. The FBI and DOJ always held a massive interest in maintaining that claim.

Robert Mueller and Andrew Weismann did everything they could to support that predicate; and all of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also carried a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative. Julian Assange was/is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack. This Russian “hacking” claim was ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K Intelligence apparatus…. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.

Read more …

 

 

Imperial Rock, Rimini, Italy

 

 

Mouse drawing
https://twitter.com/i/status/1469385917752385545

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 13 2021

Jun 132021
 
 June 13, 2021  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  51 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Ravine 1889

 

• Vaccine Euphoria (Hayen)
• If Science Was Never Challenged, We Would Never Make Any Progress (RT)
• So NOW The CDC Will Look? (Denninger)
• Pfizer Vaccine Rubber Stamped, Data Sight Unseen (Doctors for COVID Ethics)
• Covid-19 Has Mutated So Much That Proven Treatments Are Often Failing (RT)
• Greece To Accept All Vaccines For Entry Into The Country (K.)
• Judge Sides With Houston Hospital, Dismisses Claims From Staff Resisters (USAT)
• Deutsche Bank Issues Grim Post-Pandemic Warning For US Economy (RT)
• Bitcoin Is De-dollarization. Ethereum Is DeFi-nancialization (Jeftovic)
• Soviet Collapse Taught Russians The Danger Of Being A Messianic Superpower (RT)
• Boris Yeltsin Had 100 CIA Agents Who Instructed Him How To Run Russia (RT)
• Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate ‘Crisis’ (Foster)
• Republicans Propose Vaccination-By-Mail Program (BBee)

 

 

After Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen had a heart attack on the pitch last night at the Eurocup, the urgent issue should be: was he vaccinated? (he was), and if so, what is the link between the vaccine and the cardiac arrest?

I haven’t seen anyone make the connection thus far, and wonder if anyone will. But what if, g-f forbid, another vaccinated player goes down? With some 800 cases of myocarditis in young men in the US alone, this is a serious risk that requires a serious investigation.

Update: the president of his team, Inter Milan, says he was not vaccinated.

Update 2: a Twitter search for “Inter Milan doctor” appears to indicate Eriksen received his 2nd jab on May 31.

 

 

Confused? Did BBC just say that 50% of the people that died were vaccinated? But, but!???? ‘95% efficacy’, right!?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1403830591301242883

 

 

 

 

“The vaccines have been approved as experimental therapy, nothing more. How many times was it that Edison tested his light bulb before it was successful?”

• Vaccine Euphoria (Hayen)

Before medical technology caught up with our wildest dreams of living forever with no suffering, we had to make do. If a virus came along we were forced to let nature run its course. Before vaccines were discovered with the advent of Dr. Edward Jenner’s incredible work with cowpox, we didn’t have a choice but to grovel at the feet of Mother Nature and let her do her thing. Ultimately it all turned out pretty well; we are still here, aren’t we? — due to, among other things, the miracle of our immune systems. Things are different now, transhumanism is on the rise and is arriving hand in hand with the upcoming technocracy—we may one day actually be able to live forever! Yahoo! Certainly we can fight this war with Covid, with nature, and win the battle — one step closer to conquering nature entirely! We can cheat death, cheat illness, cheat suffering! Pass out the cigars!

What is the price? Humanity? That sounds too close to being ruled by nature — we certainly can give up these “human” things — smiles, touching, hugging, gathering — all things that engage our human bodies, and human hearts. These are things too close to what animals do, with animal bodies, animal instincts. That’s fine to give up, as Fauci says, we should probably never shake hands again — it’s too dangerous being human. Although I would surmise that people who are overly jubilant to get the vaccine do not necessarily believe they are transforming their body to superhuman status due to the gene therapy mechanism in the chemistry of the vaccination (I doubt if most even know what that is), but rather most of them are intrigued by the new technology they have heard it employs.

There is almost nothing in the modern medicine drug pantheon that is 100% effective, safe, or free of side effects, and even though it is clear the Covid vaccines also fall into this disappointment, the general public has indeed been told it is 95% effective and 100% safe (not bothering to be careful to ascertain what exactly it is effective in accomplishing). They are also nearly 100% synthetic, with a synthetic, high tech, mechanism. This view is a predominant one for vaccine lovers created primarily by the bottomless pockets of the manufacturers who spend countless millions in marketing and in successful attempts to show their customers how safe and effective their product is. “Look at how wonderful new technologies can be!” say their targets. “Those scientists are so very clever!”

Yes, technology can be wonderful, and yes, scientists can be very clever. Unfortunately, there have probably been more disasters in the experimental stages of products the big pharmaceutical companies want to market than successes—at least a fair share of them. The vaccines have been approved as experimental therapy, nothing more. How many times was it that Edison tested his light bulb before it was successful? How many times did he think it was going to work after “this one final experiment” — and it didn’t? There is no question that Edison was very clever, but this is the way of science and new discovery, and it always has been. And don’t tell me that mRNA technology has been studied for decades. That doesn’t cut it; Covid-19 had only been with us for about 9 months when the vaccines were rolled out.

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“I don’t know how a man of such short stature carries such massive arrogance..”

• If Science Was Never Challenged, We Would Never Make Any Progress (RT)

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent suggestion that attacks on him are attacks on science itself is nonsensical. His attitude towards criticism is a prime example of scientism, which treats people in scientific fields with undue reverence. There has been an interesting cultural fight within the culture war over science itself. Many people on the political left have a tendency to place scientific method on a pedestal and not consider it for what it is – which is, purely and simply, scientific method. Rather, they treat science as a sort of dogma which cannot be challenged. In a sense, their attitude towards it is not that different from a Christian’s outlook on the Bible. A Christian believes that the Bible is God’s word, and is static and unchanging because of the nature of God himself.

However, the nature of science is not static because our understanding of the world is not static. As such, it’s appalling when someone who wields as much influence and political power as America’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks in a manner that treats science as a dogma. In a recent interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC, Fauci recently claimed people who are critical of him are “critical of science itself”, which is clearly preposterous. Science is meant to be questioned. If science was not questioned, scientific progress would be impossible because there would be no prevailing attitude that more must be learned. The attitude and belief that science is some sort of monolith is very disconcerting from a societal perspective.

I have great respect for those who spend their time trying to understand our universe one cell and one atom at a time, but Fauci’s stance seems to spit in the face of those people. Ultimately, every person who works in the sciences can only act on what they know, and whether they admit it or not they’ll never know enough. That, surely, is the name of the game. However, Dr. Fauci comes across as if he is the self-declared face of science and that he cannot be questioned for this very reason. Aside from this being wildly untrue, this is a prime example of scientism. It promotes the idea that his diplomas and governmental position make him someone who cannot be questioned, and that his knowledge has elevated him to a place above us mere mortals. As such if you don’t listen to what he says you’re nothing but a troglodyte. I don’t know how a man of such short stature carries such massive arrogance, but he certainly does not speak as if he is someone who has the proper attitude of a scientist.

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“To be “reported” at all you have to wind up in the hospital or similar, so the presumption that these are “mild” is horsecrap.”

• So NOW The CDC Will Look? (Denninger)

When do we take out the trash? First the FDA “approves” an Alzheimer’s drug that, on the data, does not work — but it sure as Hell is expensive. At least one and perhaps two of their advisors quit over that one. Now the CDC is going to meet on the “extremely rare” myocarditis risk to kids getting tard shots. Extremely rare my ass; you never see if you don’t open your eyes, and given the reports in the news and social media there is no way this is “extremely rare.” How many people have heart attacks every day yet that doesn’t make the news unless they’re a celebrity or somesuch. So when nobodies start being reported on, well, folks, it’s not rare. To be “reported” at all you have to wind up in the hospital or similar, so the presumption that these are “mild” is horsecrap.


Nobody with a bit of discomfort goes to the ER; you go to the ER if you have chest pain, and that’s not minor. The big unknown is whether the damage done in these cases is permanent. Nobody knows. But, I remind you, a grand total of eighteen, more or less, kids have died with Covid all the way back to March of 2020. Now tell me exactly how many of the hundreds of those myocarditis events being reported, and that’s an undercount where Covid was an overcount, are acceptable if they produce permanent damage? If your answer is anything other than zero you’re a ghoul. If you gave these shots to kids, or advised kids to get them, well… you ought to have a problem. A big one. And so should Biden, Trump, all public health departments and every single corporation and social media firm that has been advocating these things for young people.

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“It is impossible to assess this study fully because 98% of the document was removed in order to protect Pfizer’s intellectual property..”

• Pfizer Vaccine Rubber Stamped, Data Sight Unseen (Doctors for COVID Ethics)

A freedom of information request (FOI) request was made by one of our members in February 2021 to the Australian drugs regulator, the TGA (Therapeutic Good Administration) to ask what should have been simple questions. The TGA is the Australian equivalent of the FDA (US), MHRA (UK) and EMA (Europe) and is held in high regard worldwide. Essentially the FOI questions were: • Did the TGA request the raw data from Pfizer • Did any of the committees approving the vaccine look at the raw data and/or discuss it • What were the “studies” referred to in the approval document relating to teratogenicity (risk of harm to a fetus)

The rationale of the request relates to concern over the validity and verifiability of Pfizer’s data given its legal history (and expressed by Peter Doshi in the BMJ in February) as well as the proven concerns over fraudulent data relating to Covid-19 as seen in the “Lancetgate” scandal of June 2020. The document below is a redacted version of the documents that were sent by the TGA in response to this request. What they show is that the TGA never saw or requested the patient data from Pfizer and simply accepted their reporting of their study as true. This means that when the head of the TGA John Skerritt said that “the safety evidence is pretty thorough” on the 6th February (here) his words would ring hollow to most Australians who have assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the TGA had actually looked at the patient data themselves.

A further concerning aspect of the FOI request is the efforts to which the TGA appeared to go to suppress the request – initially requesting a 6 months extension in view of a “voluminous request” which eventually yielded only one document of 14 pages, heavily redacted. This required an instruction from the Office of the Information Commissioner to the TGA to answer the request by the 26th May, a deadline that the TGA also failed to meet. Eventually the only document that was produced from the FOI request was a heavily redacted single study (not studies, as claimed in the TGA assessment document) showing that the only investigation into the effects on the fetus was performed on 44 rats with no long term data on the offspring. It is impossible to assess this study fully because 98% of the document was removed in order to protect Pfizer’s intellectual property (points 32-44 of the report).

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Moscow just declared a non-working week with strict curfews.

• Covid-19 Has Mutated So Much That Proven Treatments Are Often Failing (RT)

Covid-19 has mutated significantly, and the virus is now much harder to treat than it used to be. That’s according to the head of Moscow’s Kommunarka Hospital, which last year became the city’s main coronavirus treatment facility. Speaking to Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy on Thursday, the hospital’s chief physician, Denis Protsenko, who became a household name in 2020 due to his role at the forefront of the country’s battle against Covid-19, explained that it has become much harder to treat ill patients. “There is a feeling that the virus is changing,” Protsenko explained. “The proven methods of treatment for hyperinflammation or, as we call it, cytokine storms, are often failing.”

“This makes us think that the virus has also changed and has mutated in this year and a half,” he said, before encouraging people to get vaccinated against the disease. According to Protsenko, the Kommunarka hospital is now filled with a large number of elderly patients, as well as people who are overweight or diabetic. Furthermore, collective immunity in the capital is still under 50%, he said. On Wednesday, Deputy Moscow Mayor Anastasia Rakova revealed that the city would open up additional hospital beds in the upcoming days, boosting its capacity by 1,500. That announcement came after Mayor Sergey Sobyanin ordered local authorities to ramp up enforcement of sanitary measures, such as the wearing of masks on public transport. However, he also noted that he had no plans to introduce any new lockdowns.

According to the official numbers, Russia recorded 12,505 new cases nationwide on Friday – the highest figure since February 22. The capital is bearing the brunt of the latest wave, with 5,853 new infections detected in just 24 hours – 47% of all cases recorded. Moscow is home to just 10% of the country’s population. However, perhaps most worryingly, Moscow’s coronavirus spread, measured by the so-called R rate, soared to 1.6 in the past 24 hours – the highest seen since September 30 last year.

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It’s getting silly now, it’s like: as long as it comes out of a needle, you’re good to go.

• Greece To Accept All Vaccines For Entry Into The Country (K.)

All vaccines, even if they have not been approved by the European Medicines Agency, will be accepted by Greece for entry into the country, according to the member of the health committee advising the government on the pandemic. More specifically, speaking during a regular briefing of reporters, Vana Papaevangelou said the decision was taken following a recommendation by the committee. The vaccines that will be accepted are Novavax, Sinovac Biotech, Sputnik V, Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics. Papaevangelou also stressed that tourists will be able to enter from the land border, and that specifications for hotels and ships will be updated, while stating that tourism workers will have to undergo a weekly self-diagnostic test and complete their vaccinations. She sounded the alarm for those people who haven t been vaccinated, noting that 98% of deaths in the last week were people who had not completed their vaccinations.

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Freeing everyone else to start firing employees for refusing to be guinea pigs.

• Judge Sides With Houston Hospital, Dismisses Claims From Staff Resisters (USAT)

In the first federal ruling on vaccine mandates, a Houston judge Saturday dismissed a lawsuit by hospital employees who declined the COVID-19 shot – a decision that could have a ripple effect across the nation. The case involved Houston Methodist, which was the first hospital system in the country to require that all its employees get vaccinated. U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes said federal law does not prevent employers from issuing that mandate. After months of warnings, Houston Methodist had put more than 170 of its 26,000 employees on unpaid suspension Monday. They were told they would be fired it they weren’t vaccinated by June 21.


The hospital already had made it clear it means what it says: It fired the director of corporate risk – Bob Nevens – and another manager in April when they did not meet the earlier deadline for bosses. In recent weeks, a few other major hospitals have followed Houston Methodist’s lead, including the University of Pennsylvania, University of Louisville, New York Presbyterian and several major hospitals in the Washington, D.C. area. Houston Methodist’s CEO Marc Boom predicts more hospitals soon will join the effort. Many hospitals and employers were waiting for legal clarification before acting. “We can now put this behind us and continue our focus on unparalleled safety, quality, service and innovation,” Boom said after the ruling. “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do.”

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“..the experts forecast dire impacts from the Federal Reserve’s new framework that supports tolerating higher inflation for the benefit of a full recovery ..”

• Deutsche Bank Issues Grim Post-Pandemic Warning For US Economy (RT)

Further disregarding inflation will push the global economy to a major crisis, according to the latest report issued by Deutsche Bank economists who point the finger at the US money-printing policies. Germany’s largest lender warned that the unprecedented levels of cash being injected into the economy while inflation fears are being dismissed will lead to excruciating economic pain if not in the near term then in 2023 and beyond. The report points to the US’ “breath-taking” monetary stimulus that is reportedly comparable with that seen around World War II. “Then, US deficits remained between 15-30% for four years. While there are many significant differences between the pandemic and WWII we would note that annual inflation was 8.4%, 14.6% and 7.7% in 1946, 1947 and 1948 after the economy normalized and pent-up demand was released,” Deutsche Bank notes.


Moreover, the experts forecast dire impacts from the Federal Reserve’s new framework that supports tolerating higher inflation for the benefit of a full recovery of the country’s economy after the slumber caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “The consequence of delay will be greater disruption of economic and financial activity than would be otherwise be the case when the Fed does finally act,” Deutsche’s economists wrote in the first report of the new series, titled “Inflation: The defining macro story of this decade.” “In turn, this could create a significant recession and set off a chain of financial distress around the world, particularly in emerging markets,” the report added. According to the bank’s analysts, neglecting inflation leaves global economies “sitting on a time bomb.”

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“Bitcoin is for when you’re bearish on society and Ethereum is for when you’re bullish”

• Bitcoin Is De-dollarization. Ethereum Is DeFi-nancialization (Jeftovic)

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum while at the same time the world is witnessing the inexorable move to crypto in realtime. Some may question the latter half of that assertion, given that the latest FUD cycle against cryptos has been one of the most intense that I’ve witnessed since getting involved in the space in 2013. Behind the FUD we see actions. We see Russia dumping dollar assets (can you blame them?). We hear Munger making almost childishly uninformed remarks on crypto, yet BRK is investing in one of the world’s most crypto friendly banks. We see El Salvador as the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender. In my mind this has not only sounded the starting gun on de-dollarization in earnest, it goes beyond that. Back in the late 90‘s people like me were about the age of many of the crypto kids today, and we were talking about the Internet Asteroid headed straight at the telecoms and traditional media.

Today, pretty well everybody is aware of Bitcoin. They may have positive or negative opinions on it, but most people are figuring out that it’s here to stay and there is a spectrum of sentiment around that ranging from enthusiasm to denial. But I don’t get the sense that traditional institutional finance sector sees the other asteroid coming, and it’s coming straight at them. Or maybe Ethereum/Bitcoin. Whatever your risk tolerance and investment objectives entail. I’ve been listening to the Bankless podcast lately and in more than one episode they’ve said something about Bitcoin as compared to Ethereum that I think is very helpful. It’s really helped me think about the two in terms of construction of a crypto portfolio. They’ve said, in essence, that Bitcoin is for when you’re bearish on society and Ethereum is for when you’re bullish.

It’s not that I agree with that literally (I don’t), but it really helped me refine the distinction I’ve always had around Bitcoin being the value and Ethereum being the execution in a coming tectonic shift into crypto. In the olden days, bonds and equities had an inverse correlation. Bonds kept your portfolio afloat when the economy hit a soft patch and stocks went down (yes, in the olden days, stocks could experience bear markets, sometimes for months or even years). Conventional wisdom was to have a portfolio mix between equities and bonds, along some rule of thumb like 60/40 adjusted for your age, risk tolerance, etc. We’re headed into a world where Bitcoin and Ethereum will fulfil the roles that bonds and equities did traditionally.

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“Moscow, he said, “has no superpower ambitions, regardless of how much people try to convince themselves and everyone else otherwise.”

• Soviet Collapse Taught Russians The Danger Of Being A Messianic Superpower (RT)

Russia has none of the “messianic fervor” of Western states such as the US, its foreign minister said this week, as the nations’ leaders prepare to meet. No longer the Third Rome, Moscow is seeking a more modest role in the world. The author Fyodor Dostoevsky had a grand vision for the country. Russia, he believed, would lead the West back to Christ and bring about “universal, spiritual reconciliation.” This it could do, he felt, because its people supposedly had a “capability for high synthesis, a gift for universal reconcilability.” The Russian, Dostoevsky wrote, “gets along with everyone and is accustomed to all. He sympathizes with all that is human, regardless of nationality, blood, and soil.” By contrast, those on the other side of the continent, the novelist added, “find a universal human ideal in themselves and by their own power, and therefore they altogether harm themselves and their cause.”

Russians, in other words, seek to reconcile all, while Westerners believe their own ideals are universal and seek to spread them everywhere. One may justifiably doubt such sweeping generalizations. But as Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, prepares to meet the leader of the Western world, Joe Biden, next week, these different approaches to the world were on display in Russian and American public rhetoric. First, on the eve of the G7 summit in London, which begins on Friday, the New York Times noted that Biden is casting his trip to Europe “as an effort to rally the United States and its allies in an existential battle between democracy and autocracy.” “We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe,” the president said. “I believe we’re at an inflection point in world history,” he added.

“A moment where it falls to us to prove that democracies don’t just endure, but will excel as we rise to seize enormous opportunities in the new age.” An altogether different view, however, came from Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. In a riposte to Biden’s assertion that a struggle between Western liberalism and other systems was inevitable, Lavrov declared that Russia had no interest in a competition for ideological or geopolitical domination. Moscow, he said, “has no superpower ambitions, regardless of how much people try to convince themselves and everyone else otherwise.” The top diplomat claimed that the country simply doesn’t “have the messianic fervor with which our Western colleagues are trying to spread their ‘values-based democratic agenda’ throughout the planet. It has long been clear to us that the imposition of a certain development model from the outside does nothing good.”

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Did they also tell him to appoint Putin?

• Boris Yeltsin Had 100 CIA Agents Who Instructed Him How To Run Russia (RT)

The first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader. That’s according to Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia’s parliament. Speaking to radio station Govorit Moskva, Khasbulatov claimed Yeltsin’s entourage was full of Americans. In 1991, he was elected to his leadership post with Washington’s help, it has been alleged, and it is still not yet known to what extent the US remained the voice in his ear throughout his presidency. “There must have been a hundred [CIA employees],” Khasbulatov said. “They determined everything.” He also added that, after winning the presidential election, Yeltsin would send security officials and heads of departments to the US so the Americans could “examine them” and “give conclusions.”

Khasbulatov’s statement comes after former Russian vice president Alexander Rutskoy told online outlet Lenta that 12 full-time employees of the CIA helped carry out the landmark Yeltsin-Gaidar market reforms, systematically dismantling the centrally planned economic system and leading the country into shock capitalism. Rutskoy also claimed that, on one significant occasion, he overheard Yeltsin speaking to a stranger with a foreign accent. However, according to Khasbulatov, everyone knew about Rutskoy’s links to the US, and American officials even influenced the former president to replace a considerable number of his appointees.

“On the whole, Rutskoy is absolutely right – Yeltsin was advised by foreigners,” he continued. “There is no secret here, and a great number of people know about it. I don’t have any detective stories about eavesdropping, but, in general, it’s well known. Yeltsin used to confer very closely on all personnel matters with foreign representatives.” Yeltsin left office in 1999, but not before creating a hyper-presidential system, taking power away from a hostile parliament, and removing almost all checks and balances. This move was supported by Washington, which hoped to keep the Communist Party out of power in the newly formed Russian state.

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Carney’s going to claim trillions to save the planet. Few are as dangerous as he is.

• Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate ‘Crisis’ (Foster)

In his book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor both of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, claims that western society is morally rotten, and that it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a “climate emergency” that threatens life on earth. This, he claims, requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding. Carney’s views are important because he is UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. He is also an adviser both to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the next big climate conference in Glasgow, and to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Since the advent of the COVID pandemic, Carney has been front and centre in the promotion of a political agenda known as the “Great Reset,” or the “Green New Deal,” or “Building Back Better.” All are predicated on the claim that COVID, and its disruption of the global economy, provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not just to regulate climate, but to frame a more fair, more diverse, more inclusive, more safe and more woke world. Carney draws inspiration from, among others, Marx, Engels and Lenin, but the agenda he promotes differs from Marxism in two key respects. First, the private sector is not to be expropriated but made a “partner” in reshaping the economy and society. Second, it does not make a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better, but worse.

Carney’s Brave New World will be one of severely constrained choice, less flying, less meat, more inconvenience and more poverty: “Assets will be stranded, used gasoline powered cars will be unsaleable, inefficient properties will be unrentable,” he promises. The agenda’s objectives are in fact already being enforced, not primarily by legislation but by the application of non-governmental — that is, non-democratic — pressure on the corporate sector via the ever-expanding dictates of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and by “sustainable finance,” which is designed to starve non-compliant companies of funds, thus rendering them, as Carney puts it, “climate roadkill.” What ESG actually represents is corporate ideological compulsion. It is a key instrument of “stakeholder capitalism.”

Carney’s Agenda is promoted by the United Nations and other international bureaucracies and a vast and ever-growing array of non-governmental organizations and fora, especially the World Economic Forum (WEF), where Carney is a trustee. Also, perhaps most surprisingly, by its corporate victims. No one wants to become climate roadkill. Carney clearly feels himself to be a man of destiny. “When I worked at the Bank of England,” he writes in Value(s), “I would remind myself each morning of Marcus Aurelius’ phrase ‘arise to do the work of humankind’.” One is reminded of French aristocrat and social reformer Henri de Saint-Simon, the “grand seigneur sans-culotte,” who ordered his valet to wake him with similar words: “Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do.”

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“Best of all, nobody will be subjected to any racist ID checks!”

• Republicans Propose Vaccination-By-Mail Program (BBee)

As COVID vaccine delivery continues to decline nationwide, Republican leaders have proposed a radical solution: a vaccination-by-mail program to cover all Americans. “Since voting by mail went so smoothly last year, we wanted to apply those same principles to our COVID vaccination program,” said Senator Mitch McConnell. “Mail-in vaccines will ensure that we have the most secure vaccination process in American history!” The Republican proposal is simple: every American will automatically receive a pre-loaded syringe in the mail, along with a COVID vaccine card. Individuals will then self-administer the vaccine and self-report their vaccination status, all from the comfort of their own homes.

“Everyone will be able to receive the vaccine without having to miss work to travel to a vaccination site where they will wait in line for hours,” McConnell noted. “Best of all, nobody will be subjected to any racist ID checks!” Democrats were quick to criticize the proposal, saying a self-reported mail-in vaccine program was ripe for fraud and dishonesty. McConnell quickly dispelled those notions, saying they were nothing more than a transparent attempt to disenfranchise Republicans from getting vaccinated.

Read more …

 

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G7 – Who does this?

 

 

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Warheads

Apr 212021
 
 April 21, 2021  Posted by at 4:46 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Mark Chagall I and the village 1911

 

 

Joe Biden declares a “national emergency”, calls Putin a killer, slaps more sanctions on Russia, for which he has his Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken declare that “Today, we announced actions to hold the Russian Government to account for the SolarWinds intrusion, reports of bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and attempts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections,” … and then “invites” Putin for a summit.

For the SolarWinds “intrusion”, the US has never provided any evidence at all, the Russian bounties story was -finally- fully debunked well before Blinken made his statement -which makes him look very incompetent-, and the election interference narrative is by now just too dumb to even get into. No evidence for it whatsoever after 2 years of the Mueller investigation, but now Putin’s at it again? Who did he want to win, then? Trump again, after apparently not even trying in 2016?

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky states that his country should urgently be made a full member of both NATO and the EU, and has his own proxy, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, solemnly claim that not just “The only possibility for this [to prevent alleged invasion plans] is for Ukraine to finally become a NATO member”, but also that “Ukraine has no other choice: either we are part of an alliance such as NATO and are doing our part to make this Europe stronger, or we have the only option – to arm by ourselves, and maybe think about nuclear status again”.… And then Zelensky invites Putin for a summit. In the Donbass, no less.

These people are all as insincere as they possibly could be, but they trust that this doesn’t matter anymore. The western media have been planting the “Putin is a monster” seeds in their readers and viewers for many years now, and critical thought has long since left the building. Yes, that is the ultimate effect of what’s called propaganda, and as long as the sheeple “victims” don’t recognize it as such, it works like a charm.

 

I’ve been wondering for a long time why Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin as his successor in 1999, and I can’t find much information on it. Yeltsin was a US asset, and sold out his country to the CIA and a bunch of CIA-asset homegrown oligarchs. I’ve always suspected that when Yeltsin left, he felt a lot of regret for what he had done to Russia, and that maybe appointing Putin was his way to try and make up for that. I see people saying that Yeltsin thought Putin was pliable, but I think perhaps he knew exactly how Putin thought.

A “detail”: remember that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, male life expectancy for a period of time feel from a very steep cliff. And nothing Yeltsin did provided a solution to that crisis. Then, in August 1999, he appointed Putin as his prime minister, and didn’t leave a year later as planned, but 4 months later, in December. His chief of staff, Valentin Yumashev , who had hired Putin as his deputy in 1997, wrote his resignation speech:

Mr Yumashev was entrusted with writing Yeltsin’s resignation speech. “It was a hard speech to write. It was clear the text would go down in history. The message was important. That’s why I wrote the famous line ‘Forgive me’. “Russians had suffered such shock and stress during the 1990s. Yeltsin had to speak about this.”

Back to today. All economic -and other- sanctions against Russia since Putin first became president have led to one thing only: the country has dramatically increased its self-sufficiency. And in the process has upgraded its weapons arsenal to a level that no western country even comes close to, including the US, for maybe 10% of what the same US has spent on its own arsenal.

Russia’s latest generation of hypersonic missiles, against which no country has any defense, are far superior to what anybody else possesses. When they said recently they could take out a specific building in Kyiv if they wanted, they were not exaggerating. So yeah, look for Biden and Blinken and NATO et al to soon start using that superiority as a reason to incite more war vs Moscow.

A war they could never win, but that’s not the point any longer. One might argue of course that it never was after the advent of nuclear weapons. The whole point of NATO today, its raison d’être, is that it can create chaos wherever it goes and looks. It’s no longer capable of defending anyone from the Russian threat, but then that threat hasn’t been there for many years.

 

And NATO wants to continue existing, as does the Pentagon, and Boeing and Raytheon, it’s all about money, so they have to make up a threat, aided by their media brethren. That‘s why you see, from time to time, reports about Putin having yet another person “poisoned”, why governments in countries like the UK and Germany go along with the narrative, and why media in all other vassal states parrot these stories.

In that vein, the story this week out of Czechia, which expelled 18 Russian diplomats, kind of sets a new standard in absolute nonsense.

The Czech organised crime squad (NCOZ) said it was looking for two men using Russian passports in relation to the explosions. The passports bear the names of Alexander Petrov, born in 1979, and Ruslan Boshirov, born in 1978, and their holders are also wanted in Britain in connection with Skripal’s poisoning in Salisbury.

Mark Ames’ reaction to this on Twitter is so good, I’m not going to try to beat him to it: : “If I understand this right, apparently GRU thought it’d be smart to use the same 2 spies to carry out 2 separate deadly operations in NATOland – 2014 bombing in Czech Rep, 2018 Skripal poisoning – using exact same aliases & fake passports in both operations.”

Now that the west has lost its military superiority, all that’s left for it to claim is some sort of “intelligence superiority”, so it portrays Russians as really dumb people. Putin tries to poison one person after another, invariably people who are no threat to him at all, with the deadliest poisons on the planet, and fails time and again. Navalny is a US asset who gets 2% max of votes in a poll, Skripal is a former military intel officer who was allowed to go to the UK after being exposed as a double-agent (!), but they fit the 20+ year old narrative of Putin as Pol Pot. Stories. They are all that counts. Reality, not so much. Bernays and Goebbels are having a ton of fun in their own private hells.

So how will the Ukraine episode be resolved? Not easy. Making the world’s 2nd-most corrupt country a full member of NATO is out of the question, Russia will never accept that. Which is why the west is pushing it. Ukraine with nukes is even more preposterous, if that is possible (hard call). Dmitry Orlov suggested a “solution” the other day about which I have major question marks, but he’s Russian and I’m not, so take a look:

Putin’s Ukrainian Judo

The answer, I believe, is obvious: evacuation. There are around 3.2 million residents in Donetsk People’s Republic and 1.4 million in Lugansk People’s Republic, for a total of some 4.6 million residents. This may seem like a huge number, but it’s moderate by the scale of World War II evacuations. Keep in mind that Russia has already absorbed over a million Ukrainian migrants and refugees without much of a problem.

Also, Russia is currently experiencing a major labor shortage, and an infusion of able-bodied Russians would be most welcome. Domestically, the evacuation would likely be quite popular: Russia is doing right by its own people by pulling them out of harm’s way. The patriotic base would be energized and the already very active Russian volunteer movement would swing into action to assist the Emergencies Ministry in helping move and resettle the evacuees.

The elections that are to take place later this year would turn into a nationwide welcoming party for several million new voters. The Donbass evacuation could pave the way for other waves of repatriation that are likely to follow. There are some 20 million Russians scattered throughout the world, and as the world outside Russia plunges deeper and deeper into resource scarcity they too will want to come home.

While they may presently be reluctant to do so, seeing the positive example of how the Donbass evacuees are treated could help change their minds. The negative optics of surrendering territory can be countered by not surrendering any territory. As a guarantor of the Minsk Agreements, Russia must refuse to surrender the Donbass to the Ukrainian government until it fulfills the terms of these agreements, which it has shown no intention of doing for seven years now and which it has recently repudiated altogether.

[..] The West would be left with the following status quo. The Donbass is empty of residents but off-limits to them or to the Ukrainians. The evacuation would in no sense change the standing or the negotiating position of the evacuees and their representatives vis-à-vis the Minsk agreements, locking this situation in place until Kiev undertakes constitutional reform, becomes a federation and grants full autonomy to Donbass, or until the Ukrainian state ceases to exist and is partitioned. The Ukraine would be unable to join NATO (a pipe dream which it has stupidly voted into its constitution) since this would violate the NATO charter, given that it does not control its own territory.

Further sanctions against Russia would become even more difficult to justify, since it would be untenable to accuse it of aggression for undertaking a humanitarian mission to protect its own citizens or for carrying out its responsibilities as a guarantor of the Minsk agreements. The Donbass would remain as a stalker zone roamed by Russian battlefield robots sniping Ukrainian marauders, with the odd busload of schoolchildren there on a field trip to lay flowers on the graves of their ancestors. Its ruined Soviet-era buildings, not made any newer by three decades of Ukrainian abuse and neglect, will bear silent witness to the perpetual ignominy of the failed Ukrainian state.

Dmitry suggests 4.6 million people leave the Donbass so peace may be restored. But most of those people grew up there, and so did their families. And largely peacefully so, until the US and NATO, John McCain and Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, tried to take over Ukraine. Why should Russia, instead of protecting these people where they live, migrate them and protect them in Russia? Anyone ask for their own opinion?

There would be a giant empty piece of land where they once lived, in a kind of demilitarized zone? And what then? Nobody in Ukraine would come up with the idea to move into the empty land? And if they did, Russia would have to shoot them from Russian territory? I sort of see the reasoning of course, but not all of it. It only seems to work if you see Russia, and the Russians in the Donbass, as the aggressors.

Were they? Are they? Russia only sprung into action when the west tried to take away their sole warm water port, Sevastopol in Crimea. An election was held, and 97% of mostly Russians voted to be part of Russia. Yeah, that upset NATO and the other usual suspects, but that doesn’t make Russia an aggressor.

Russia has no reason to “invade” Ukraine. They don’t need even more territory, they’re already by far the largest nation on earth. Moreover, they don’t have the military to occupy large swaths of land. They only have the capacity to protect their own.

Thing is, they really got that down. So the only thing NATO can do, in its quest to prove it has reason to exist, is to create chaos, as I said before. But there is a problem with consciously creating chaos between nuclear powers, instead of maintaining communication channels, as the US and USSR always did during the Cold War. Do we all understand this means we are in a worse situation today than back then? That all those expulsions of diplomats only make the situation worse?

And that some fool could actually fire a nuclear missile because of that? Me, I’m not so sure anymore. Between the Covid virus and the US cancel culture, there are not that many western people paying attention to warmongers and NATO aka warheads. Not a good idea.

 

 

 

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