Dorothea Lange White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco 1933
CIA back in 2008. Leaked by @wikileaks
Normal
Come on, who can possibly think this is normal?
It’s like watching building 7 fall over and over and over again and still not questioning why. Or seeing the Pentagon hit by a “plane” every day but seeing no plane wreckage.
— Dr. Syed Haider (@DrSyedHaider) January 10, 2023
“..And don’t forget to sponsor our oligarchs’ luxurious lifestyle in Europe!”
• No One Doing ‘Enough’ For Ukraine, Foreign Minister Says (RT)
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has urged Kiev’s “partners” to continue funneling military aid into the country, claiming that “no one has done enough” to help the nation yet. “Ukraine is grateful to partners for their military aid, but we should remain honest with one another: No one has done enough as long as Russian boots remain on Ukrainian ground. Arming our country for victory is the shortest way to restoring peace and security in Europe and beyond,” he tweeted on Monday. The bold statement did not escape the attention of Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, who delved into Kuleba’s thread to mock his rallying call and suggest that Kiev had different goals in mind. “Translation from Ukrainian: We have squandered our army again, give us more arms, and we will continue to pretend that we are fighting Russia on our own. And don’t forget to sponsor our oligarchs’ luxurious lifestyle in Europe!” he wrote.
“The sooner the people of Ukraine realize that the West is using them to wage a war on Russia, the more lives will be saved..”
• ‘We Are Facing The Entire NATO In Ukraine’ Kremlin Says (ZH)
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev has issued ultra-provocative words claiming that it’s not fundamentally Ukraine that Russia is at war with, but that the Russian military is facing all of NATO inside Ukraine. “The events in Ukraine aren’t a clash between Moscow and Kiev. It’s a military confrontation of NATO, first of all the US and Britain, with Russia. Fearing a direct engagement, NATO instructors push Ukrainian men to certain death,” he said in a fresh interview with state-owned newspaper aif.ru. Patrushev continued by describing Russia’s military as geared toward seeking to “free its regions from occupation and must put an end to the West’s bloody experiment to destroy the fraternal people of Ukraine.” “We are not at war with Ukraine because we can’t have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians by default,” he stressed. He then presented Russian and Ukrainian heritage as closely bound up together, according to state media:
“Get this: the Ukrainian language is one of the official languages in Crimea. Ukrainian cultural centers, Ukrainian folk song and dance groups continue to exist in many cities. A considerable number of people in the south of the Far East regard Ukrainian culture as their own, given a large proportion of migrants from the times of Stolypin,” he said, referring to Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister of the Russian Empire in the early 1900s, who oversaw a resettlement policy. “The sooner the people of Ukraine realize that the West is using them to wage a war on Russia, the more lives will be saved,” Patrushev added. “Many have realized that long ago, but they are afraid to say that publicly out of fear of reprisals. It’s not a part of the West’s plans to save someone’s life to the detriment of its enrichment and other ambitions. Even so, the Americans, the British and other Europeans often create an illusion that they protect civilization from barbarians.”
He then referenced the ongoing Western backed attempts of Kiev to make Russian language and culture illegal, which directly impacts millions in the region: “all this story with Ukraine was engineered by Washington to rehearse the technologies of dividing a people that’s one and sow discord,” he said. Meanwhile, there’s a growing move among leading NATO countries to begin transferring Western tanks and troop carriers to the Ukrainian battlefield. Starting last week, France began leading the way, resulting in a fierce response from the Kremlin… But following this warning that a “red line” has been crossed, the Biden administration approved sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and now Britain is the next to be mulling tanks for Ukrainian forces, as Sky News reports Monday:
The UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks for the first time to fight Russia’s invading forces, Sky News understands. Discussions have been taking place “for a few weeks” about delivering a number of the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tank to the Ukrainian armed forces, a Western source with knowledge of the conversations said. A Ukrainian official was cited in the report as saying that the UK sending tanks would in turn “encourage others to give tanks.” President Zelensky during his December in-person address to US Congress mentioned that his country is in dire need of tanks, and he’s specifically multiple times asked Washington for M1 Abrams tanks.
The US has still remained reluctant, however, largely on fears that too much heavy weaponry too fast would lead to direct NATO-Russia confrontation, ostensibly at least. But based on the words of Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev, it seems Russia increasingly sees military confrontation with NATO as already happening. After all, the massive loss of Russian troops in the Makiivka barracks attack was reportedly accomplished with US-supplied HIMARS missile systems.
Black hole.
• UK Mulls Unprecedented Arms Supplies To Ukraine (RT)
Britain may soon announce a delivery of ten Challenger II tanks to Kiev, Sky News reports citing both Ukrainian and UK sources. While symbolic, the first-ever delivery of Western-made battle tanks is meant to encourage the US and Germany to do the same, the outlet said. PM Rishi Sunak’s government has been discussing the possibility for “a few weeks,” according to the outlet, which suggested some kind of official announcement might be made on January 20, when the US-led ‘Contact Group’ for arming Ukraine is scheduled to meet.= One source said the UK “might offer around ten” tanks, described as “enough to equip a squadron.” While nowhere near enough to turn the tide of the conflict, the move could push other Western countries past the line they have been unwilling to cross.
France, the US and Germany have pledged increasingly heavier armor to Ukraine, but drew the line at sending main battle tanks, which Kiev is desperate for. “It will be a good precedent to demonstrate [to] others – to Germany first of all, with their Leopards… and Abrams from the United States,” a Ukrainian source told Sky. Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov laid out this very tactic to the US outlet Politico last October. Last week, Reznikov told Ukrainian TV that his country is “carrying out NATO’s mission” by shedding blood, so it is the West’s responsibility to provide the weapons.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said in December that Moscow wasn’t fighting the Ukrainian military so much as the entire West, noting that Kiev had received around $97 billion in military aid in 2022. Russia has repeatedly warned the West that this is only prolonging the conflict and may escalate into direct confrontation. The US and its allies have insisted they are not involved, but continued ramping up weapons shipments to Ukraine. Last month, Ukraine’s top general told The Economist that his army needed at least 300 tanks and 700 infantry fighting vehicles. As of August 2020 – when it was rumored the entire armored corps might be scrapped as “obsolete” – the British Army had around 220 Challengers and 388 Warrior IFVs.
The BBC reported in mid-December that Sunak was looking for an accounting of all the aid the UK had sent to Ukraine, citing anonymous sources inside Whitehall who were working with Kiev to push back on this. The British defense ministry would neither confirm nor deny Sky’s rumor about the tanks, telling Sky only that they have provided “over 200” armored vehicles to Ukraine so far. However, reports of pending weapons shipments are routinely leaked to the media ahead of time. US outlets talked about the dispatch of Bradley IFVs a week before President Joe Biden confirmed it in a passing comment. The official announcement came just a day later.
Great story.
• What Is Ukraine Hiding In The Bakhmut Salt Mines? (Larry Johnson)
The prolonged battle for Bakhmut is portrayed in the press as a symbol of Russian weakness. I know that many Westerners have scratched their heads and wondered why such a fierce battle is being waged over this particular piece of territory. The answer, I believe, lies below the surface of Bakhmut/Soledar in the Soledar Salt Mines (aka Artyomsol Salt Mines). The Salt mine is a monster, with a 125 miles of tunnels. Take a look at these images:
Evgeny Prigozhin, the creator of the Wagner Group offered the following update on the situation in Bakhmut and mentions the Salt mines in passing: “Bakhmut is the central point of the Eastern Front and a serious logistics center. And our task there is to die as little as possible, and to destroy the enemy as much as possible. Bakhmut’s feature is in its unique historical and geographical defense capabilities, which include, first, the division of the city into several parts by water barriers. Secondly, the neighborhood of Bakhmut is a complex of settlements that create a unified defense system. Thirdly, this is a unique landscape, ravines and heights, which are natural tunnels. And the icing on the cake is the system of Soledar and Bakhmut mines, actually a network of underground cities. In which there is not only a cluster of people at a depth of 80-100 meters, but also tanks and infantry fighting vehicles move. And stockpiles of weapons have been stored since the First World War “(c) Prigozhin
I think there is more going on underground than salt-mining. It is a secure warehouse for Ukraine’s military equipment. The blog ScoopTrade provides a great overview: Prior to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Artyomsol was the largest enterprise for the extraction and sale of table salt in Central and Eastern Europe. It consists of five salt mines, which are located within the city limits of Soledar and Praskovievka: mines No. 1, No. 3, No. 4, No. 7 and the Volodarsky mine. They are interconnected by rail and road, as well as a developed system of underground communications, which, after the outbreak of hostilities, were improved by the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Artemsoli salt mine system is already being used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine as an underground fortress. Ammunition depots, quarters for personnel, and in some places even hangars for equipment are equipped at great depths.
And “get” them from the surface is almost impossible. Underground communications are also used by Ukrainian military personnel to move between positions, and the approaches and some entrances to the mines are mined and ready to be blown up. In terms of difficulty for the assault, the Artemsol mines can easily compete with the famous Azovstal in Mariupol. This helps explain why Ukraine is pouring shrinking manpower into the meat grinder battle on the surface. It is a critical facility. However, is it possible that Ukraine has stored evidence of its bioweapons program in the mines? This is more than a key transportation/logistics hub. Curiously, an anonymous White House official this week began pushing the line that Prighozin, who is a Chef, is just interested in getting control of the salt mine financial benefits (and maybe for its culinary quality):
“The United States is of the view that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the founder of Russia’s most powerful mercenary group, is interested in taking control of salt and gypsum from mines near the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut”, a White House official said on Thursday. There are indications that monetary motives are driving Russia’s and Prigozhin’s “obsession” with Bakhmut, the official added. Prigozhin is the owner of private Russian military company Wagner Group. I think there is more to this than just trying to hang on to a profitable natural resource. Ukraine is not fighting a desperate battle and sacrificing thousands of its troops just to protect a lucrative spice. What do you think?
“A steady Russian build-up in Belarus is underway. The S-400 and Iskander missile systems have been deployed there. A NATO (Polish) attack on Belarus is no longer realistic.”
• Biden’s Existential Angst In Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)
The bipartisan consensus in the Beltway on the United States being the ‘indispensable’ world power is usually attributed to the neocons who have been the driving force of the US foreign and security policy in successive administrations since the 1970s. The op-end in the Washington Post on Saturday titled Time is not on Ukraine’s side, coauthored by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in George W. Bush presidency and Defence Secretary Robert Gates (who served under both Bush and Barack Obama), highlights this paradigm. Rice and Gates are robust cold warriors who are enthusiastic about NATO’s war against Russia. But their grouse is that President Biden should ‘dramatically’ step up in Ukraine. The op-ed harks back to the two world wars that marked the US’ ascendance as world power and warns that the US-led ‘rules-based order’ since 1990 — code word for US global hegemony — is in peril if Biden fails in Ukraine.
Rice and Gates indirectly acknowledge that Russia is on a winning streak, contrary to the western triumphalist narrative so far. Evidently, the expected Russian offensive ahead is rattling their nerves. Equally, the op-ed is contextual to American politics. The House speaker stalemate and its dramatic denouement in a bare-knuckle political fight among Republicans presages a dysfunctional Congress between now and 2024 election. Kevin McCarthy, who had former president Donald Trump’s backing, finally won but only after making a series of concessions to the populist wing of the GOP, which has weakened his authority. The AP reported, “Fingers were pointed, words exchanged and violence apparently just averted… It was the end of a bitter standoff that had shown the strengths and fragility of American democracy.”
[..] The op-ed appeared on the day after the January 5 joint statement by Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz underscoring their ‘unwavering solidarity’ with Ukraine. Under immense pressure from Biden, Germany and France caved in last week to provide Ukraine with Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Scholz also agreed that Germany will supply an additional Patriot air defense battery to Ukraine. (A top SPD politician in Berlin has since voiced reservations.) On the same day as the op-ed appeared, Pentagon arranged, unusually for a Saturday, a Press briefing by Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia. Cooper stated explicitly that the war in Ukraine threatens the US’ global standing: “From an overall strategic perspective, it is hard to emphasise enough the devastating consequences if Putin were to be successful in achieving his objective of taking over Ukraine. This would rewrite international boundaries in a way that we have not seen since World War II. And our ability to reverse these gains and to support and stand by the sovereignty of a nation, is something that resonates not just in Europe, but all around the world.”
[..] As for the war, the tidings from Donbass are extremely worrisome. Soledar is in Russian hands and the Wagner fighters are tightening the noose around Bakhmut, a strategic communication hub and lynchpin of Ukrainian deployments in Donbass. On the other hand, contrary to expectations, Moscow is unperturbed about sporadic theatrical Ukrainian drone strikes inside Russia. The Russian public opinion remains firmly supportive of Putin. The commander of the Russian forces, Gen. Sergey Surovikin has prioritised the fortification of the so-called ‘contact line,’ which is proving effective against Ukrainian counterattacks. Pentagon is unsure of Surovikin’s future strategy. From what they know of his brilliant success in evicting NATO officers from Syria’s Aleppo in 2016, siege and attrition war are Surovikin’s forte. But one never knows. A steady Russian build-up in Belarus is underway. The S-400 and Iskander missile systems have been deployed there. A NATO (Polish) attack on Belarus is no longer realistic.
They want both Russia and NATO.
• Poll Reveals How Turks Feel About Russia (RT)
Turkish people overwhelmingly see Russia in a positive light and want their nation to have a good relationship with the country, a recent poll has indicated. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed across 24 Turkish provinces at the end of last year asserted to pollster Gezici that Russia was friendly towards Türkiye while less than a quarter (24.2%) believed Russia to be hostile. The results were reported on Saturday by the TV channel Ulusal Kanal. An overwhelming 72.8% of Turks said the two nations should have a good relationship, while 62.6% said Russia was making a positive contribution to the Turkish economy.
The news outlet suggested that the attitude contrasted to how Turks felt about the US, stating that the perception of Washington in the country took a turn for the worse after the attempted military coup in 2016. “We can say that the people are more distant from the West and have more confidence in the Russians,” Murat Gezici, the president of the polling agency, said, as quoted by Ulusal. Türkiye joined NATO in 1952 and has the second-largest standing army among members, after the US. However, ties between the two nations have been worsening over the years. Among other things, Washington punished Ankara for its 2017 decision to buy Russian-made S-400 long-range anti-aircraft missiles. The US kicked Türkiye out of its F-35 fighter jet program in retaliation.
The rift was highlighted last year by Ankara’s refusal to join Washington’s drive to impose sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, with the Turkish government choosing to play the role of mediator instead. The predominant public opinion in Türkiye is in favor of the neutrality policy and also rejects Washington’s claim that the Russian attack against its neighbor was unprovoked. A May survey by the consultancy MetroPOLL showed that just 33.7% of Turks blamed Moscow for the conflict, compared to 48.3% who pointed the finger at Washington and NATO. Nevertheless, Turks remain supportive of the US-led bloc, according to the same poll, with almost 60% favoring their nation’s continued membership in it.
Macron admitting he cannot speak for himself.
• Macron Talks Of ‘Putin’s Paradox’ (RT)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not an “unpleasant” man, Emmanuel Macron has said, but even that cannot be an excuse for launching a “war” on Ukraine. The French president made the bizarre remark as he made an appearance on Saturday at Les Rencontres du Papotin, a TV program hosted by a group of journalists with autism. Macron was grilled by journalists on assorted issues, including his ties with Putin. “When you meet him like that, he’s not unpleasant. That’s the paradox,” Macron stated, adding that “there is nothing to justify starting a war.” The French president also expressed his view of the roots of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, alleging that the true goal of Putin was the restoration of the Russian “empire.” Macron, however, did not elaborate on how exactly the ongoing hostilities might help achieve this alleged goal.
“Basically, he launched this war to recover territories and to extend Russia’s perimeter to the empire that once existed. He took a very heavy responsibility for himself, his people, obviously for the people of Ukraine, and for us all. This is how I see things,” Macron said. The president also warned about giving in to the misconception that the Russian troops were somehow on the verge of defeat in Ukraine. While those forces have sustained certain casualties, Macron asserted, Kiev’s forces were nowhere near achieving a battlefield victory. Macron has taken a somewhat ambiguous stance over the course of the ongoing conflict. He himself has repeatedly underscored the need to engage in talks with Russia. At the same time, Paris followed the collective West in its anti-Russian movement and has actively supported Kiev, pledging a new batch of wheeled tanks for Ukrainian troop forces just last week.
“Stick around in ’23, unless the spike proteins have got your number. It’s going to be a humdinger of a year.”
• Insurrection Anybody? (Kunstler)
[.] the US Swamp endured a rebellion in the House of Representatives last week. The 20-odd reps who revolted against Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker — Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and others — sought written guarantees — which they won – to prevent such legislative insults as the passage of a 4000-page omnibus spending bill that nobody could possibly read prior to voting, along with many Swamp-draining changes in rules. One rule change makes it much easier to remove Speaker McCarthy from leadership if he reneges on any of his agreements. The House can now proceed to multiple inquiries into the vast matrix of rot, malice, and deceit that has set the federal government at war against its own citizens.
One example of this despotic malice, of course, is the open border with Mexico that has enabled millions of unvetted migrants to enter the USA illegally with the federal immigration apparatus recruited (also illegally) to disperse them all over the country. “Joe Biden” traveled down to the border last weekend in a pretend show of concern for the disorder the stage-managers behind him have instigated there. They stupidly took him for a photo op to one of the few places on the border where he wouldn’t have to actually witness mobs crossing the Rio Grande: a stretch of wall that his predecessor, Mr. Trump, built. Hey, no unsightly foreign riffraff cluttering up the picture there!
Before long, the House is going to impeach Mr. Biden over this fiasco and quite a few other matters. He may not be convicted in the Senate, with its slim Democratic Party majority, but they will be compelled to hold a trial, at least, where a lot of dirty laundry will get aired, and pressure will mount for the old grifter to resign. Ms. Harris is sworn in and five minutes later suffers a “nervous collapse” that the public is not informed about. It sets off a wild series of events around the selection of a new vice-president — Barack or Michelle Obama? — that could burn the whole joint down. Stick around in ’23, unless the spike proteins have got your number. It’s going to be a humdinger of a year.
“..if you’re a member you must be there to either vote or count in a quorum.”
• What Did Our Speaker Thing Get? (Denninger)
Don’t kid yourselves folks, there were substantive changes that came out of the US House speaker “fight.” This came across my feed before the final votes, so I can’t vouch for it. But enough of it was leaked that I suspect its real, and any attempt to not follow through by McCarthy is likely to lead to an endless set of motions to vacate the chair, which is a privileged motion and stops all other activity in the chamber until disposed of. McCarthy really didn’t want that threshold to be one Representative, but absent agreement he was not going to be Speaker and it was quite-clear as the days wore on that those who were opposed were not going to bend no matter how much he yelled or threatened them. He had no choice but to consent. That request is not radical; it in fact is how The House has run for most of the last hundred years.
It exists for the specific purpose of putting a stop to the Speaker abusing his or her position in that if you run crap like refusing to allow floor amendments the Representative(s) that you anger can tie the chamber up in knots until you cut it out. The Speaker, in short, is not King yet that is exactly how it has been treated since the 2016 elections. Pelosi turned that into an art form; exactly zero non pre-screened amendments were allowed to be offered on the floor during her tenure. She’s not alone; Ryan did the same sort of thing and the reason the “one vote motion” rule was killed when Pelosi got the gavel was that members of the House repeatedly attempted to eject him from the chair for doing it. Restoring that capacity is absolutely a good thing. The House is a body of 435 members and in order to represent the people members must be able to proffer both legislation and amendments. If you cannot do so without the prior approval of one person then there is no representation of the people at all; we have what amounts to a monarchy in the US House.
Legislation can be forced onto the floor for vote out of committee by a discharge petition (although it takes a supermajority to do it) but if you can’t offer amendments then half the process is absolutely held hostage to the whim of one individual. This should have never been allowed in the first place and it was the big sticking point with McCarthy. He didn’t give this up willingly so we shall see whether he actually conceded to the point of view or whether he “conceded” only until he could find a weapon with which to politically kill his opponents. The other changes are just as real but secondary. I find nothing objectionable in any of them but as I noted I would have insisted on more: Legislation barring Executive-declared emergencies of any sort beyond 72 hours past when the House and Senate can convene (whether they actually do) and a bar via rules change on remote appearance and proxies; if you’re a member you must be there to either vote or count in a quorum.
Burisma.
• GOP Moving Forward With Biden Probes (RT)
Now in control of the House, Republicans are pushing forward with probes into President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings in Ukraine and China, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee has said. Big Tech ‘censorship’ of the Hunter Biden laptop story will also be under the spotlight. Rep. James Comer told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday that the chamber now controlled by Republicans will thoroughly examine the Biden family’s “influence peddling” and “shady business dealings” abroad. “We’re not investigating Hunter Biden, we’re investigating Joe Biden,” the Kentucky lawmaker insisted, adding that Americans “need to know what is allowable and what isn’t allowable with respect to foreign adversarial intervention among family members of presidents of the United States.”
Comer argued that the only people who see the investigations as partisan are “the media and the hardcore Democrats.” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan will also chair a new Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which would look at the role government agencies like the DOJ and FBI played in suppressing reporting on the Hunter Biden story. The New York Post’s reporting on Biden junior’s mislaid laptop – which revealed information about his business relationships in China and Ukraine – was heavily censored on social media ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Files released by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk in December appeared to confirm that FBI officials pressured the platform’s staff to classify the story as a foreign-influence operation.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Jordan promised to investigate “vigorously” and “aggressively” to expose “every single bit of it.” The Ohio Republican previously requested information from Big Tech companies on their alleged “collusion with the Biden administration to censor conservatives.” The probe will also look for any evidence of government pressure to quash debate on controversial issues like the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. GOP sources told Axios that the new committee will demand copies of White House emails, memos and other communications with Big Tech platforms. The White House has dismissed the probes as “pointless political stunts,” and accused the GOP of failing to work with the administration “to take on the issues Americans care about like tackling inflation.”
“..$54.6 million in Chinese donations after the Biden Center was announced in 2016..”
• Classified Documents Found At President Biden’s Think Tank (ZH)
Classified documents from Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President were found in early November at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, CBS News reports, citing two sources with knowledge of an inquiry launched by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The investigation into the roughly 10 documents will be conducted by the US Attorney in Chicago (shocking!), according to the sources. The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, the day before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement to CBS News. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the classified documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets. -CBS News
Remember when the DOJ raided former President Trump and made a huge deal about classified documents having been commingled with not-classified documents? Pepperidge Farm remembers. According to Sauber, the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives on the same day the material was discovered, after which the Archives took possession the next morning. “The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” said Sauber. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.” In charge of the investigation is John Lausch, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who will seek to determine how the classified material ended up at the Penn Biden Center (which received $54.6 million in Chinese donations after the Biden Center was announced in 2016).
Biden irresponsible
Biden on 60 Minutes in September reacting to classified documents being found at Mar-a-Lago:
"How does that happen? How could anyone be that irresponsible." https://t.co/ps6kLurHa3 pic.twitter.com/WiiYBGPOFM
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 9, 2023
No, Alex/Elon, we want the Fauci files, not some Gottlieb drivel. You can do that later.
• From the Twitter Files (Berenson)
On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers – saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines. The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine mandates. It came not from an “anti-vaxxer” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but from Dr. Brett Giroir, a physician who had briefly followed Gottlieb as the head of the Food & Drug Administration. Further, the tweet actually encouraged people who did not have natural immunity to “Get vaccinated!” No matter. By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots.
Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year. Gottlieb stepped in, emailing Todd O’Boyle, a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House. The post was “corrosive,” Gottlieb wrote. He worried it would “end up going viral and driving news coverage.” I found the email in a search of records I ran at Twitter last week – part of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” effort to raise the veil on censorship decisions Twitter made before Musk bought the company in October.
Pfizer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612474690978684934
“Dr. Ealy stresses he’s “triple-checked this,” and he stands by the allegation that the agency is removing or obfuscating records.”
• The CDC Appears to be Removing VAERS Records (GR)
Dr. Henry Ealy is the Founder & Executive Community Director for the Energetic Health Institute. He holds a Doctorate in naturopathic medicine and has been at the tip of the spear on the Grand Jury front — taking action to bring forth a Grand Jury investigation of the CDC for allegations of criminal data fraud and willful misconduct. “You mentioned that V-Safe should be added to VAERS, but only 4% of V-Safe [adverse events have been] added. Can you explain what that means to people and why it matters?” asked Dr. Wolf. Dr. Ealy explained, “VAERS is designed specifically for medical professionals and people alike to report, ‘Hey, I got hurt.’ And when enough people have gotten hurt for officials to look at it and say, ‘Hey, this product isn’t safe; it’s got to come off the market.’ V-Safe was created (by the CDC) to also do something similar to that — and to make that process a little bit easier. You don’t need as much information to record a report in V-Safe.”
By streamlining the process, the CDC got inundated with adverse event reports from the Covid-19 shot. Out of the 10,108,273 individual users, 800,000 had an adverse event — or about 1 in 13. And of those 800,000 V-Safe reports, only 30,492 have been logged into VAERS. Dr. Ealy continues, “In V-safe, there have been over 800,000 reports of injury. And the deal was that in V-Safe, every single report of injury was supposed to also then subsequently have a VAERS report associated with it. So that means all 800,000 should be in VAERS. But unfortunately, or by design — however you want to look at it — only just over 30,000 of those 800,000 have been recorded in VAERS. So what that means is that fewer than 4% of the records in V-Safe have actually been reported in VAERS as they were supposed to be done.”
“What a sneaky way to basically sweep almost 800,000 adverse events under the rug,” remarked Dr. Wolf. “Adverse events, hospitalizations, permanent injuries, deaths — compromises [the] dataset,” replied Dr. Ealy. “That’s so disgusting!” exclaimed Dr. Wolf. To add insult to injury, not only are the bulk of V-Safe reports not making their way to VAERS, but Dr. Ealy suspects that VAERS reports are being removed. Specifically, he notes that between September 2022 and December 2022, the CDC has removed at least 32,844 records of injury related to the following conditions: myocarditis, pericarditis, and heart inflammation. What were 45,388 reports three months ago has now inexplicably dropped down to 12,544. Dr. Ealy stresses he’s “triple-checked this,” and he stands by the allegation that the agency is removing or obfuscating records.
“Research shows the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein obliterates 90% of the DNA repair mechanism in lymphocytes, white blood cells that help your body fight infection and chronic disease, including cancer.”
• Are COVID Boosters Behind Increase in Cancer Among Younger Adults? (CHD)
Data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database — historically one of the most well-kept and most heavily relied upon medical databases in the world — showed that, compared to the previous five-year averages, cancer among Department of Defense personnel in 2021 skyrocketed. Overall, cancers tripled among servicemen and their family members after the rollout of the COVID-19 shots. Breast cancer went up 487%. Exploding cancer rates are also seen elsewhere. One of the first to warn that the shots might cause cancer was Dr. Ryan Cole, a pathologist who runs his own pathology lab. He suspects the shots accelerate already existing cancers by way of immune dysregulation. He noticed that cancers that were previously well-controlled would suddenly grow out of control and rapidly lead to death once they got the COVID-19 jab.
Swedish pathologist, researcher and senior physician at Lund’s University, Dr. Ute Kruger, has also observed an explosion in rapidly advancing cancers in the wake of the COVID-19 shots. For example, she’s noticed: • Cancer patients are getting younger — The largest increase is among 30- to 50-year-olds. • Tumor sizes are dramatically larger — Historically, 3-centimeter tumors were commonly found at the time of cancer diagnosis. Now, the tumors they’re finding are regularly 4 to 12 centimeters, which suggests they’re growing at a much faster rate than normal. • Multiple tumors in multiple organs are becoming more common. • Recurrence and metastasis are increasing — Kruger points out that many of the cancer patients she’s seeing have been in remission for years, only to suddenly be beset with uncontrollable cancer growth and metastasis shortly after their COVID-19 jab.
These “turbo-cancers,” as Kruger calls them, cannot be explained by delayed cancer screenings due to lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions, as those days are long gone. Patients, despite having access to medical screenings as in years past, are showing up with grossly exacerbated tumor growths, and she believes this is because the cancers are being “turbo-charged” by the mRNA jabs. Disturbingly, as detailed in “How Cancer Deaths From the COVID Jabs Are Being Hidden,” analysis of U.S. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report data suggests the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been filtering out and redesignating cancer deaths as COVID-19 deaths since April 2021 to eliminate the cancer signal. The signal is being hidden by swapping the underlying cause of death with the main cause of death.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612664071408726017
The fallout of the secret/lost Bourla/von der Leyen deal.
• Germany Wants to Cancel Its Vaccine Deal (NC)
“Too many doses, billions in costs – the government wants to cancel the vaccine deal.” So reads the headline of an article published by Die Welt on Dec. 31, 2022. According to the article, there are currently more than 150 million surplus vials in the government’s central warehouse — and no end in sight to the deliveries. The government now wants to cancel or reduce the additional orders made through the EU Commission for 2023 and 2024. Germany’s Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach — who just a few months ago proposed taking Germany’s vaccine passport restrictions to a whole new level — is taking flak as allegations mount that he reordered a huge new batch of the vaccines despite growing stockpiles amid slumping demand for the boosters.
More information seeped out earlier this week, in response to a freedom of information act request made by the right-wing populist political party Alternative for Germany (AfD). According to a later piece in Die Welt, Germany’s government is actually sitting on a stockpile of over 30 million unused doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. But it is also on the hook for a total of 375 million doses of the Pfizer BioNtech COV-19 vaccine, of which 212 are yet to be delivered [machine translated]: “There is a surplus of around 32 million vaccine doses in the federal central warehouse. The federal government is also obliged to purchase around 375 million doses of the Corona vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer. But what happens to the surplus vaccine doses?”
Germany has committed to buy around 375 million doses of the Corona vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer. This emerged from a response by the federal government to a request from the AfD parliamentary group, which the Bundestag published on Tuesday. Accordingly, as of November 30, 2022, the Federal Republic was contractually obliged to purchase around 283 million doses. In addition, there is a purchase obligation “for a further” 92.4 million. The government did not provide any information about the price per dose. This is subject to contractual confidentiality and may not be made public. Both Pfizer BioNtech and the European Commission, which negotiated the EU’s bulk purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, have agreed to keep schtum about the price of the vaccines, as well as a whole host of other details enclosed within the vaccine contracts. Those contracts are now the subject of an investigation by Europe’s Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).
Both the EU Court of Auditors and the EU’s ombudsman Emily O’Reilly have raised serious questions about the preliminary negotiations that took place between Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the lead up to the EU’s biggest vaccine procurement deal. Both von der Leyen and the Commission she heads have refused to disclose the content of her communications with Bourla. Signed in May 2021, the resulting deal was for the acquisition of up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine. Although the EU has not disclosed how much it paid for the vaccines, credible estimates have surfaced that place the price per shot at around €20. According to sections of the vaccine contracts seen by the Financial Times, the price for the vaccines in the EU’s biggest vaccine contract was €19.50 a pop — a 26% markup on the initial price (€15.50) paid in late December 2020.
Fraiman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612352266228441094
A while
Took me a while! pic.twitter.com/KcxY5hLjya
— Figen (@TheFigen_) January 9, 2023
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