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Debt Rattle November 1 2024

Nov 012024
 
 November 1, 2024  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Paul Klee Carnival in the snow 1923

 

• White House Overrode Stenographers, Altered “Garbage” Transcript (ZH)
• Is the Left Preparing for War If Trump Wins? (Lee Smith)
• Kamala Harris’ Bizarre Marketing Campaign Appeals To The Worst In Humanity (ZH)
• FBI Ran ‘Honeypot’ Operation On 2016 Trump Campaign – Whistleblower (RT)
• Facebook Files Reveal the Coordinated Effort to Bury the Laptop Story (Turley)
• RFK Jr. Explains Plan for Reforming the CIA (HUSA)
• Lawsuit Over $1 Million Giveaways on Hold After Elon Musk’s Legal Maneuver (ET)
• Why the Cancel Campaign Targeting Jeff Bezos Could Backfire (Turley)
• County Clerk Confirms Voting Booth ‘Glitch’ Shifted Trump Votes To Kamala (ZH)
• Voter Confidence Rattled As Voting Machines Malfunction Across Illinois (JTN)
• Biden Goes On Baby-Mouthing Spree At White House Halloween Party (ZH)
• BRICS post-Kazan: A Laboratory of the Future (Pepe Escobar)
• BRICS Grows, Adding 13 New ‘Partner Countries’ (Norton)
• In Georgia and Moldova, it’s Oxi for NATO and the EU (Karganovic)
• Genocidal Scorecard (Chris Hedges)
• Israel’s Attacks On Iran Were An Apocalyptic Error By Netanyahu (Jay)
• Tightening Russian Oil Sanctions Threatens Global Economy – Le Monde (RT)

 

 

 

 

This IS genuinely funny
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851781793524879778

RFK

J6

Rogan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851849883986137583

Elon

Kamala

Discord

O’Reilly

Go Vote
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851835337783357821

A warning from Mike Maloney

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..any edits to the official transcript would have to be approved by their supervisor, the head of the stenographer’s office – who was unavailable.”

• White House Overrode Stenographers, Altered “Garbage” Transcript (ZH)

In a mad scramble to cover for President Biden calling half of the country “garbage,” White House press officials altered the official transcript, overriding official stenographers who objected to the alterations, the Associated Press reports. According to the pre-altered transcript, Biden said “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” However White House press office added an apostrophe, reading “supporter’s” rather than “supporters,” in order to peddle the falsehood that Biden was criticizing comic Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the US island territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The change was made after the press office “conferred with the president,” according to an internal email from the head of the stenographers’ office that was obtained by The AP.

The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. The supervisor, in the email, called the press office’s handling of the matter “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.” -AP According to the email, the press office demanded that stenographers quickly produce a transcript of Biden’s call with Latino activists to discuss Hinchicliffe’s comments, while Biden’s social media team posted on X that he was not calling all Trump supporters garbage – and that he was specifically referring to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally.” The two-person stenography team on duty that evening, a “typer” and a “proofer” said that any edits to the official transcript would have to be approved by their supervisor, the head of the stenographer’s office – who was unavailable.

Because of this, the White House press office went ahead and published an altered transcript on the White House website and distributed it to the press and social media in a mad scramble. The supervisor did not like that… “If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” wrote the supervisor, adding “Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff.” The supervisor, a career White House employee, raised concerns about the alteration in an email to White House communications director Ben LaBolt, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and other officials. “Regardless of urgency, it is essential to our transcripts’ authenticity and legitimacy that we adhere to consistent protocol for requesting edits, approval, and release,” he wrote.

The alteration was done as the White House scrambled to respond to a cascade of press inquiries over Biden’s comments – which completely upstaged Kamala Harris’ closing argument speech outside the White House. As journalist Michael Shellenberger points out, it was likely illegal. Biden’s comment was a gift to the Trump campaign, which immediately capitalized on it – fundraising off the quote, while Trump himself held a photo op inside a garbage truck on Wednesday.

Harris also moved to quickly distance herself from Biden’s comments, telling reporters “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” Meanwhile, House Republicans have been discussing launching an investigation into the fabrication – with House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-(NY), and House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-(KY), on Wednesday accusing the White House of “releasing a false transcript” of Biden’s remarks, and called on White House counsel Ed Siskel to retain documents and internal communications related to Biden’s remarks and the transcript. “White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message,” the lawmakers wrote, noting that it may have been a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

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“Thus, it is best understood in the context of recent accounts promising, or urging, violence after the November vote.”

• Is the Left Preparing for War If Trump Wins? (Lee Smith)

The propaganda campaign labeling Donald Trump as an aspiring dictator determined to use the military and national security apparatus against his political opponents is designed not to affect the upcoming election but rather to shape the post-election environment. It is the central piece of a narrative that, by characterizing Trump as a tyrant (indeed likening him to Hitler), establishes the conditions for violence — not just another attempt on Trump’s life, but political violence on a massive scale intended to destabilize the country. As I write in my forthcoming book Disappearing the President, Democratic Party research and media reports show that many senior party officials and operatives are preparing for the possibility of a Trump victory. Accordingly, planning is focused on undermining the incoming president with enough violence to rock his administration.

Prominent post-election scenarios forecast such widespread rioting that the newly elected president would be compelled to invoke the Insurrection Act. With some senior military officials refusing to follow Trump’s orders, according to the scenarios, the U.S. Armed Forces would split, leaving America on the edge of the abyss. By vilifying Trump as a despotic madman who must be stopped before he can commence his reign of terror, the regime’s propaganda apparatus not only slanders Trump but also pre-emptively threatens the reputation, as well as the livelihood and perhaps the liberty, of current military personnel. The point is to push the military against Trump: When the time comes to act, will you stand for democracy or side with a tyrant who sees the military only as an instrument to advance his personal interests?

For instance, last week the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, quoted former Trump administration officials claiming that the Republican candidate is contemptuous of America’s armed forces and, according to Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, wishes he could command the same respect that Hitler commanded from his general officers. This is not the first time that Trump has been compared to Hitler or that Kelly, a retired Marine general, turned on his former commander-in-chief. Kelly was the key source for a story published before the 2020 election, also in the Atlantic and also by Jeffrey Goldberg, that alleged Trump had called American WWII soldiers buried in French cemeteries “suckers and losers.” The veracity of Kelly’s latest revelation that Trump admires Hitler must of course be judged against the fact that he waited five years to disclose it, even if it is unlikely to have much effect on the current election cycle.

The military, and veterans of the Global War on Terror in particular, overwhelmingly support the candidate opposed to waging endless and strategically pointless foreign wars. Moreover, Trump has weathered far more damaging fabrications — like the false allegations that he had been compromised by Russian intelligence — that only galvanized support for him. The purpose of the Hitler narrative is not to alter the electoral preferences of left-wing media audiences already solidly in the anti-Trump column, but rather to justify taking extreme measures against the Republican candidate and the America First movement and ensure that the bulk of the military sides with the anti-Trump plot. Thus, it is best understood in the context of recent accounts promising, or urging, violence after the November vote.

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“If a woman or a minority votes conservative, Democrats assert that it’s because they’ve been brainwashed into it.”

• Kamala Harris’ Bizarre Marketing Campaign Appeals To The Worst In Humanity (ZH)

You can tell a lot about a political candidate and their party by their marketing campaigns. Most importantly, do they explain the views of their candidate and their policies? Or, do they simply seek to manipulate voters into believing something that’s not true? The Kamala Harris campaign has actually gone one step further in the past month with a bizarre series of ads that, when examined altogether, showcase an ideological degeneracy that appeals to the worst in humanity. While Donald Trump and conservatives are often accused of being “mean” or blunt in their rhetoric, at least it’s sincere and speaks to actual issues rather than subconscious desires. On the other hand, if you’re looking for any kind of class in a candidate, there’s none to be found among the Democrats.

Taking a page from the Edward Bernays school of advertising that taps into the grimy recesses and narcissism of the dregs of society, the marketing for Harris has been odd – It encourages dishonesty among families, relies on shaming techniques instead of critical thinking and it’s often sexually charged in the ugliest way. Some of these ads are not directly created by Harris operatives, but generally speaking most ads are approved by the candidate or political party officials before they’re released. In her most recent campaign, Harris ads attempt to sow discord among married couples, suggesting that women should hide their political views from their husbands and vote for Harris without them knowing. Or, the goal is to suggest that American men are somehow controlling their wives and coercing them into voting for Trump. In the Democrat fantasy world the only reason a woman would vote for Trump is because her husband is forcing her to. It’s a rather insulting portrayal of women, but it also taps into the leftist assumption that all minorities and women are their political property.

If a woman or a minority votes conservative, Democrats assert that it’s because they’ve been brainwashed into it. Beyond that, any man who has been married for even a short period of time is well aware of his wife’s political ideals and will not be surprised how she votes. It’s strange that the Harris camp is trying to portray voting as if it should be treated like an extra-marital affair. Of course, this is the kind of behavior that progressives commonly encourage women to engage in, it’s just weird to see it so blatantly promoted in a campaign ad. Then there’s the efforts to shame men into voting for Harris which have clearly not gone over so well. Her support among men is dismal, even among Gen Z, and this can be attributed directly to the decade long propaganda war on masculinity perpetrated by leftists. Men remember, and they’re certainly not going to vote for the same people that have called them “incels” or “rapists” or “toxic” for years.

Shaming is a traditionally feminine psychological tactic. This ad gives us an example of the reality that Democrats operate from a highly estrogenated world view and they don’t understand men in the slightest. By extension, Democrats may have made an epic blunder with this grotesque ad featuring a man masturbating in bed while watching porn, only to be disrupted by a cliche Republican invading his privacy and telling him he’s not allowed to punish his porpoise anymore. The ad itself is far creepier than the Republican it tried to lampoon, insinuating that masturbation is on the ballot and that this is something the average male voter should be focused on. For progressives, everything is about sex.

A root obsession of narcissists, sexual gratification is a core value for them and sexual identity a proxy making up for a lack of any legitimate personality. Furthermore, the conservative efforts against pornography are specifically aimed at enforcing age limits online so that children don’t have access (a pervasive problem in the digital era). It’s a reasonable position, but Democrats desperately want kids to have access to sexual content for some reason. Sticking with the theme of sexual gratification, let’s not forget this little gem of an ad which features a black man trying to match with women on a fake dating show, only to be denied by all of them because he says he’s not voting. The message? Vote for Harris or you won’t get laid.

The marketing is also aimed at women, much like the voting in secret ad, teaching them to treat men like the enemy unless those men vote Democrat. There are dozens of other ads like this beyond those listed here, with a host of Dem candidates following Kamala’s lead. This is truly the dark side of political content, reducing voters down to their most base animal instincts and avoiding any mention of actual policy. To be sure, Democrats understand the mentality of their core supporters well, but these ads would not appeal to anyone outside of the most rabid leftist activists. For posterity, the Harris marketing campaign should be studied as a window into the progressive mind; future generations should be dissecting this material for decades to come as an example of one of the most unsettling chapters in American political history.

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“Trump had just announced his first presidential campaign and neither he nor anyone on his campaign team was suspected of any crimes. Nevertheless, Comey ordered two “honeypot” agents to infiltrate Trump’s team..”

• FBI Ran ‘Honeypot’ Operation On 2016 Trump Campaign – Whistleblower (RT)

Former FBI Director James Comey personally ordered “honeypot” spies to infiltrate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to an agency whistleblower. The off-the-books operation was described by the agency insider as a “fishing expedition” to find wrongdoing among Trump’s team. The operation was “personally directed” by Comey and launched in June 2015 without any case file being created in the FBI’s database, according to a whistleblower report handed to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and seen by the Washington Times. At the time, Trump had just announced his first presidential campaign and neither he nor anyone on his campaign team was suspected of any crimes. Nevertheless, Comey ordered two “honeypot” agents to infiltrate Trump’s team on the campaign trail with the aim of extracting damning information from adviser George Papadopoulos, the report claimed.

A “honeypot” agent refers to an attractive woman who uses a sexual or romantic relationship to gather intelligence from a target. Comey’s operation took place a year before the FBI’s ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia, which later morphed into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year ‘Russiagate’ probe. According to the whistleblower, the honeypot operation was kept “off the books” to conceal it from the US Justice Department’s inspector general, who later determined that Comey knowingly lied when submitting evidence to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump’s campaign. Papadopoulos was eventually questioned by the FBI and in 2017 pled guilty to making false statements to agents regarding his alleged contacts with Russia the year before.

He served 12 days in federal prison in 2018, and has claimed ever since that he was entrapped by FBI agents posing as Russians with damaging information on Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. He complained about sloppy FBI agents “dropping information in my lap that I did not want regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails in the hands of the Russians” during the Crossfire Hurricane probe, and claimed to have been targeted by at least one “honeypot” beforehand. However, Papadopoulos thought that the woman was working for the CIA and “affiliated with Turkish intelligence,” he said in 2019. The operation was canceled when a newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the agents and was about to publish it, the whistleblower claimed.

The FBI allegedly contacted the newspaper claiming that the woman in question was an informant, and not an agent, and would be killed if the photo was released, successfully preventing its publication. One of the agents was then allegedly transferred to the CIA so she would not be available as a potential witness. “The FBI employee personally observed one or more employees in the FBI being directed to never discuss the operation with anyone ever again, which included talking with other people involved in the operation,” the report states. The Judiciary Committee told the Washington Times that it “plans to look into” the report. Trump fired Comey in 2017, describing him as a “liar” and a “slimeball.”

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“When we get hauled up to [Capitol] [H]ill to testify on why we influenced the 2020 elections, we can say we have been meeting for YEARS with USG [the U.S. government] to plan for it.”

• Facebook Files Reveal the Coordinated Effort to Bury the Laptop Story (Turley)

In a new report released by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, Facebook executives are shown following the lead of the FBI, which gave them prior warnings to prepare to spike such stories before the election. The FBI knew that the laptop was authentic. They had possession of the laptop, and American intelligence concluded that it was not Russian disinformation. One Microsoft employee wrote, “FBI tipped us all off last week that this Burisma story was likely to emerge,” However, these communications also show a knowing effort to appease Biden and Harris and effectively assist them in their election efforts. Facebook’s then-Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg reportedly wrote to Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan, “[o]bviously, our calls on this could colour the way an incoming Biden administration views us more than almost anything else.”

One of the most interesting communications came from a Facebook employee who recognized that they would be accused of seeking to influence the election: “When we get hauled up to [Capitol] [H]ill to testify on why we influenced the 2020 elections, we can say we have been meeting for YEARS with USG [the U.S. government] to plan for it.” The Facebook files go beyond influencing the election. At one point, Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, asked, “Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made.” The Vice President in charge of content policy responded, “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more. We shouldn’t have done it.”

Notably, Democrats opposed every effort to seek this information, and Facebook only recently relented in turning over its files years after Elon Musk ordered the release of the “Twitter files.” I raised this issue during the NCC event to counter the glowing self-appraisal of Meta over its record. Despite its claims of transparency, it refused calls from many of us for years to release these files. When finally forced by the House to do so, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a perfunctory apology and moved on. As shown at the NCC event, it is now spinning its record as a defense of free speech.

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“RFK called Pompeo a “neocon” and said he disagreed with him on many policies, but also said he admired him, calling the former agency director brilliant.”

• RFK Jr. Explains Plan for Reforming the CIA (HUSA)

Former President John F. Kennedy threatened to “splinter [the CIA] into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds” before he was assassinated in 1963. JFK’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wants something perhaps less dramatic. In a Trump campaign event with Tulsi Gabbard on Saturday, RFK explained his idea for reforming the CIA. According to him, reforming the CIA is as simple as splintering the “espionage” and “plans” divisions, which handle matters of intelligence and paramilitary operations, respectively. Those divisions are referred to today as the Directorate of Intelligence and Directorate of Operations. RFK said the two divisions need to be reorganized so the intelligence/espionage area has oversight of the paramilitary operations. He said his father had a similar plan when he was Attorney General.

“My father had a reform plan … Break up espionage division from the plans division, which is paramilitary division that fixes elections, buys newspapers, assassinates foreign leaders and so on,” he said. “I would break up those divisions and … put espionage division oversight of plans division.” Such a plan may seem tepid for a man who’s accused the CIA of being involved in the murder of his uncle. But RFK’s been surprisingly cordial with the agency. His daughter-in-law and campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, was a CIA officer for 10 years. RFK also revealed at Saturday’s campaign event in North Carolina that he had dinner with former Trump-era CIA Director Mike Pompeo. RFK called Pompeo a “neocon” and said he disagreed with him on many policies, but also said he admired him, calling the former agency director brilliant.

RFK said Pompeo told him that “The worst mistake of my public lie was not fixing CIA. I could have but I didn’t do it.” “The entire upper echelon of that agency is made of individuals who don’t believe in the institutions of the United States of America,” RFK said.

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“..has been placed on hold after lawyers for the billionaire removed the case to federal court..”

• Lawsuit Over $1 Million Giveaways on Hold After Elon Musk’s Legal Maneuver (ET)

A lawsuit brought against Elon Musk over his $1 million giveaways to randomly selected registered voters who sign a petition supporting the First and Second amendments of the Constitution has been placed on hold after lawyers for the billionaire removed the case to federal court. Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo Foglietta said on Oct. 31 that he was placing the case on hold after Musk’s lawyers late on Oct. 30 removed it to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Foglietta said during a hearing at Philadelphia’s City Hall that he was divested of jurisdiction because of the move. Musk celebrated the result with a post on social media platform X, which he owns, that read “American Justice FTW [for the win].” Removing cases filed in state courts to federal court is not uncommon and is done at the prerogative of defendants under federal law. One of the requirements is that removal of a case must happen within 30 days of the filing of a complaint.

Federal judges who are assigned to the removed cases can decide whether to keep them in federal court or remand them back to state courts. Foglietta said that he would be available later in the day if the case were remanded back to him. Musk’s lawyers said in their removal notice that the case brought by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner involves significant federal issues and should thus be adjudicated by a federal judge. “While the Complaint purports to raise only state-law claims relating to public nuisance and consumer protection, D.A. Krasner’s claims, as evident on the face of the Complaint, turn principally on the allegation that Defendants are somehow unlawfully interfering with a federal election,” the lawyers said. Krasner sued Musk and his America PAC, or political action committee, recently over their daily $1 million giveaways to registered voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states. The scheme, Krasner claimed, constitutes an illegal lottery.

Krasner asked a state court to stop Musk and the America PAC from continuing the giveaways. Musk’s lawyers said in the new filing: “Plaintiff is seeking emergency relief which, in and of itself, would require judicial intervention into the progress of an ongoing federal election. This, however, a state court cannot do, as the issue of whether a federal political action committee like America PAC—which is focused on making independent expenditures to influence campaigns for federal office, not state or local offices—is exclusively governed by federal law and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Krasner was present in court, but another attorney, John Summers, argued for the district attorney’s office. Summers said that the case was one about state law and should proceed in the claims court and that Musk’s attempt to remove the case was cowardly and irresponsible.

Musk, Summers alleged, was attempting to use procedural maneuvers to run out the clock and avoid accountability because the law and facts weren’t on his side. Summers also cast doubt on the idea that Musk’s giveaway was random, noting that at least four recipients have come from Pennsylvania. If the giveaway were random, Summers said, it was definitely a lottery. The PAC, he alleged, was luring people in to give it their personal information. The type of personal information it sought, he said, was often bought and sold among tech companies. A lawyer for Musk argued that his client wasn’t a proper defendant in the case and that the prosecution should focus on America PAC instead of one of its donors. Summers responded in part by highlighting Musk’s role in announcing and promoting the contest. “The 800-pound gorilla here is actually Elon Musk,” Summers told Foglietta.

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“Bezos could do for the media what Musk did for free speech..”

• Why the Cancel Campaign Targeting Jeff Bezos Could Backfire (Turley)

It is not every day that you go from being Obi-Wan Kenobi to Sheev Palpatine in twenty-four hours. However, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos now has the distinction of having Luke (Mark Hamill) lead a boycott of his “democracy dies in darkness” newspaper as the daily of the darkside. Figures like former Rep. Liz Cheney announced she was canceling her subscription as a boycott movement led a reported 200,000 to give up their subscriptions. Some like George Conway even seemed to target Bezos’ Amazon. It is a familiar pattern for many of us (on a smaller scale) who used to be associated with the left and faced cancel campaigns for questioning the orthodoxy in the media or academia. Then something fascinating happened. Bezos stood his ground. The left has made an art form of flash-mob politics, crushing opposition with the threat of economic or professional ruin. Most cave to the pressure, including business leaders like Meta’s Mark Zuckerburg.

That record came to a screeching halt when the unstoppable force of the left met the immovable object of Elon Musk. The left continues to oppose his government contracts and pressure his advertisers over his refusal to restore the prior censorship system at X, formerly Twitter. Now, the left may be creating another defiant billionaire. This week, Bezos penned an op-ed that doubled down on his decision not to endorse a presidential candidate now or in the future. Some of us have argued for newpapers to stop all political endorsements for decades. The encouraging aspect of Bezos’s column was that he not only recognized the corrosive effect of endorsements on maintaining neutrality as a media organization, but he also recognized that the Post is facing plummeting revenues and readership due to its perceived bias and activism.

I used to write regularly for the Post, and I wrote in my new book about the decline of the newspaper as part of the “advocacy journalism” movement: “Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.” Bezos previously brought in a publisher to save the Post from itself. Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis promptly delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” The response was that the entire staff seemed to go into vapors, and many called for Lewis to be canned. Bezos stood with Lewis. Now, resignations and recriminations are coming from reporters and columnists alike. In a public statement, Post columnists blasted the decision and said that while maybe endorsements should be ended, not now because everyone has to oppose Trump to save democracy and journalism.

The statement produced some chuckles, given the signatories, including Phillip Bump and Jen Rubin, who have been repeatedly accused of pushing false stories and reckless rhetoric. (Rubin later denounced Bezos for his “Bulls**t explanation” and said that he was merely “bending a knee” to Trump.). Bezos could do for the media what Musk did for free speech. He could create a bulwark against advocacy journalism in one of the premier newspapers in the world. Students in “J Schools” today are being told to abandon neutrality and objectivity since, as former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has explained, “all journalism is activism.” After a series of interviews with over 75 media leaders, Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.”

Few can stand up to this movement other than a Bezos or a Musk. However, the left has long created their own monsters by demanding absolute fealty or unleashing absolute cancel campaigns. Simply because Bezos wants his newspaper to restore neutrality, the left is calling for a boycott of not just the Post but all of his companies. That is precisely what they did with Musk.

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“…isn’t it ‘funny’ how these ‘glitches’ are never in Trump’s favor?”

• County Clerk Confirms Voting Booth ‘Glitch’ Shifted Trump Votes To Kamala (ZH)

Earlier in the day, a video went viral of voters in Kentucky having ‘issues’ with an electronic voting machine that selected “Kamala Harris” when the voter had pressed on “Donald Trump”… Admittedly, we have seen a few of these style of clips over the past few weeks and viewed it with the same level of skepticism we usually do. However, this time is different because the local County Clerk just issued a statement on Facebook confirming the issue “did occur”… but not before he had denied it occurred. According to the Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown, the machine was taken out of service while waiting for a rep from the AG’s Office. So, the initial reaction was: “There is no vote rigging here. It’s just a vast right wing conspiracy.” Then, 3 hours later… “Ok, the voting machine was busted, but it really was just a “ballot marking device” and as long as you triple checked everything, you must have caught the error..”

Here’s the full statement: “The Attorney General’s office has been to the vote center to check the device that has been shown across social media today. In full disclosure, after several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur. This was accomplished by hitting some area in between the boxes. After that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not. Since this is going out across the USA and the world, I want to explain to everyone that this is a ballot marking device. You insert your blank ballot into it to vote your specific ballot for your precinct. It shows you who you have chosen for each race and notifies you if you didn’t make a selection in a race before it allows the voter to continue to the next page. When you come to the end of the ballot it shows you how you voted in every race and issue.

It confirms with each voter that they are satisfied with their selections twice before printing the ballot. Once you receive your ballot back from the ballot marking device you can review your choices again before placing it into the scanner. If you made a mistake, you may spoil that ballot and receive another one, Kentucky Law allows two spoiled ballots only. Once you are satisfied with your ballot you may place it into the scanner, and it verifies that it has been counted.

These ballot marking devices are set for a voter to touch Inside the whole box with the name of the candidates. In the video posted you can see us going back and forth through the names with no issues. This is the same machine used by the voter in the video. It remained at its location in the vote center and was set face down until the representative from the Attorney General’s Office arrived to investigate. There were no claims of any issues with the device prior, and none since it went back into service. The voter who posted the video did cast her ballot which she said was correct. I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County. We strive to have accurate, secure and safe elections that we are proud to provide to our citizens. I hope all can get to the polls and make your voice heard November 5th. If you read through this entire post, thank you very much for your time.”

…isn’t it ‘funny’ how these ‘glitches’ are never in Trump’s favor?

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’don’t worry, we’ll just put it in the box, and we’ll make sure we scan them all tonight,’ uh, when everybody leaves..”

• Voter Confidence Rattled As Voting Machines Malfunction Across Illinois (JTN)

Voter confidence has been shaken with voting machines malfunctioning in several Illinois jurisdictions. In McLean County, 34 ballots were placed in what the County Clerk Kathy Michael called “an emergency bin,” which is located underneath the voting machine used to tabulate ballots. At the Eastland Mall, an early voting location, the machine “glitched” for 30 minutes. Affected voter Wayne Henrichs called the clerk’s office after putting his ballot in the bin and was connected with an assistant county clerk. “She indicated that they [the ballots in the emergency bin] are considered mail in ballots and they will be counted on election day rather than being counted early,” said Henrichs. Mclean County Elections Director Mark Senger said any ballots placed in the “emergency” bin will be tabulated after the early voting sites close. Senger said the ballots were tabulated after they closed on Tuesday, Oct. 22.

“The thing that concerned me was one: Is that really secure? Two: we are voting early for a reason and that’s to bank those votes,” said Henrichs. Such ballots are to be tabulated and witnessed by Democratic and Republican election judges, according to state law. In viral social media posts, voters say they walked out of a Schaumburg early voting site after the ballot scanner stopped working. One Schaumburg voter posted a video saying he didn’t cast his ballot after election judges told him to put his ballot in a box to be scanned later. “Well, so much for early voting. Their scanner’s broken, and they said, ’don’t worry, we’ll just put it in the box, and we’ll make sure we scan them all tonight,’ uh, when everybody leaves,” the voter said.

In another video posted on social media, election judges can be seen addressing a group of about 50 voters. A man wearing what appears to be an election judge badge made an announcement. “We have one scanner and the one scanner is broken,” the man said. “No one is going to open that [the emergency bin] up until tonight, and that’s us who take care of it. You know us, you have our badges,” said another election judge. McLean County GOP Chair Dennis Grundler was at the Eastland Mall trying to vote early on Tuesday. He said he was told to put his ballot in the emergency bin and he asked the judges for their names. The election judges didn’t give him their names. The McLean County Clerk’s Office said the law states for security purposes judges now use a letter designation instead of their name. According to the law, judges must initial ballots and they use their name/initials.

Read more …

Is there any way this is not embarrassing? For any grown up man? Let alone for the man who’s got the nuclear codes?

• Biden Goes On Baby-Mouthing Spree At White House Halloween Party (ZH)

One night after punching a new hole in the sinking ship that is the Kamala Harris campaign — and with no political future of his own to tamp down his impulse to put his mouth on children — President Joe Biden went on a baby-biting binge at a White House Halloween party on Wednesday night, leaving the internet collectively mortified. For anyone who’s somehow unaware, Biden has a long, rich history of mouthing, sniffing and grabbing children and women. This video gives just a small sampling of Biden’s uninvited touching that has fully earned him the nickname “Creepy Joe”: After multiple women came forward to say Biden had made them uncomfortable with his touching, Biden issued a video apology in 2019, saying, “Social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful of personal space in the future.”

However, with no second term on the line Wednesday night, Biden gleefully abandoned his personal-space pledge. Given his record, it would have grabbed major attention if Biden only mouthed a single baby. However, like an alcoholic falling off the wagon with great abandon, he indulged himself over and over. No doubt realizing this would be one of the last such opportunities he will ever have, the 81-year-old lame duck proceeded to mouth baby after baby that parents served up to him in a receiving line. Those parents appeared to politely tolerate their offspring being christened with presidential saliva, but we can imagine his handlers facepalming as Biden gave way to his compulsion to bestow oral affections.

[..] The baby-mouthing blitz capped quite a 24-hour stretch for Biden. On Tuesday evening, just as Kamala Harris was delivering her highly-promoted “closing argument” speech on the Capitol Ellipse, Biden undercut his replacement on the Democratic ticket by telling an audience that “the only garbage I see floating out there is [Trump’s] supporters.” The White House scrambled to claim that Biden was stuttering, and that there should be a possessive apostrophe (supporter’s) — supposedly indicating he was singling out an insult comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally who likened Puerto Rico to a pile of garbage — many people aren’t buying it, and the Trump campaign is using the gaffe to enormous advantage. Meanwhile, social media lit up over Biden’s creepy Halloween display, including a positively ghastly yet somehow fully appropriate horror-movie treatment:

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“The collective west’s incomprehension of what transpired in three historic days in Kazan only highlighted their astonishing arrogance, stupidity, and brutality..”

• BRICS post-Kazan: A Laboratory of the Future (Pepe Escobar)

Apart from establishing the 13 new partners – constituting a large, transcontinental, de facto BRICS zone – Kazan advanced two key platforms: BRICS Clear and the BRICS (Re)Insurance Company. BRICS Clear is a multilateral settlement/clearing system for both BRICS trade and trade between BRICS and their partners (as it stands, applying to 22 nations). The key aim, once again, is to bypass SWIFT. BRICS Clear will use national currencies for international trade. Everything will be transacted via a stablecoin – a unit of account – managed by the NDB, the Shanghai-based BRICS bank. As top French economist Jacques Sapir has pointed out, “trade requires insurance services (for both the contract itself and transportation); these insurance services involve reinsurance activities. With the BRICS (Re)Insurance Company, BRICS is building its independence from western insurance companies.”

BRICS Clear and BRICS (Re)Insurance, in the short to middle term, will have enormous consequences for global trade and the use of US dollars and euros. Trade flows, intra-BRICS and between BRICS partners – already at least 40 percent of the global total – may rise exponentially. In parallel, western-controlled insurance and reinsurance companies will lose business. That’s de-dollarization in practice – arguably the BRICS Holy Grail. Of course, India and Brazil never refer to de-dollarization in the manner of Russia, China, and Iran, but they do support BRICS Clear. Sapir predicts that up to 2030, the BRICS Clear effect may result in the dollar share in Central Bank’s reserves falling “from 58 percent to around 35-40 percent.” Significantly, that would imply “massive sales of Treasury bonds, causing a collapse of the public bond market and significant difficulties for the US Treasury in refinancing United States debt.” The Hegemon will not take that lightly, to say the least.

These BRICS geoeconomic breakthroughs – call it lab experiments – mirror diplomatic coups such as India and China, mediated by Russia, announcing on the eve of Kazan their drive to settle bilateral troubles in the Himalayas to advance the unifying, pan-cooperation BRICS agenda. Solving geopolitical issues among member-nations is a key BRICS priority. The China–India example should translate to Iran–Saudi Arabia when it comes to their involvement in Yemen and Egypt–Ethiopia when it comes to the controversial building of a major dam in the Nile. BRICS sherpas openly admit that BRICS needs an internal institutional mechanism to solve serious problems among member-states – and, eventually, partners.

And that brings us to the ultimate incandescent tragedy: Israel’s military offensives in Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran. BRICS sherpas revealed that two scenarios were being actively discussed in the closed sessions, as well as the bilateral meetings. The first foresees an Iran–Israel Hot War, with Lebanon turned into a major battleground, leading to a “chain reaction” involving several Arab actors. The second scenario foresees a pan-West Asia crisis, involving not only neighboring nations but what would coalesce into coalitions – one pro-Arab, the other pro-Israeli. One wonders where dodgy actors such as Egypt and Jordan would fit in. It’s unclear how BRICS, as a multilateral organization, would react to both scenarios.

Dreadful realpolitik did not stop in its tracks to watch the BRICS high-speed train leave the Kazan station. Israel staged its puny strike on Iran immediately afterward, and the collective west pronounced the elections in Georgia null and void because they did not like the result – even though the OSCE issued a rational report about it. The collective west’s incomprehension of what transpired in three historic days in Kazan only highlighted their astonishing arrogance, stupidity, and brutality. That’s precisely the reason why the BRICS matrix is working so hard to come up with the lineaments of a new, fair international order, and despite an array of challenges, will continue to flourish.

Read more …

Thought a list might be useful.

• BRICS Grows, Adding 13 New ‘Partner Countries’ (Norton)

The Global South-led organization BRICS is growing. More and more countries support the group’s mission: to build a multipolar world, with alternative economic institutions that are more representative and democratic, not dominated by the Western powers. BRICS held a summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, where 13 new “partner nations” were accepted. At this historic meeting, China’s President Xi Jinping referred to BRICS as “a vanguard for advancing global governance reform” and “reform of the international financial architecture”. Bolivia’s left-wing President Luis Arce argued that “the shield of BRICS and multipolarity” can protect formerly colonized nations, helping them resist “Western unipolarity and the tyranny of the dollar”. The organization was first formed as BRIC in 2009, by Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa subsequently joined in 2010, turning the group into BRICS.At the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, several more members were invited to join.

As of October 2024, BRICS has nine members and 13 partner countries:

5 original members:
Brazil
Russia
India
China
South Africa

4 new members (invited in August 2023; officially admitted in January 2024):
Egypt
Ethiopia
Iran
United Arab Emirates

13 partner countries (accepted in October 2024):
Algeria
Belarus
Bolivia
Cuba
Indonesia
Kazakhstan
Malaysia
Nigeria
Thailand
Türkiye
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

The expansion of BRICS has made the group into even more of a geopolitical and economic powerhouse. Together, the nine BRICS members comprise more than one-third of world GDP (measured at purchasing power parity). They have well over 40% of the planet’s population, and make up roughly 30% of global oil production. By contrast, the G7 nations comprise less than 10% of the world population and under 30% of GDP (PPP), and their share of the global economy is shrinking over time, whereas that of BRICS is increasing.

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Not at all what EU and US wanted. Or even expected.

• In Georgia and Moldova, it’s Oxi for NATO and the EU (Karganovic)

In Greek, “Oxi” means “no.” October 28 is celebrated in Greece and Cyprus as “Oxi Day.” On that date in 1940 Mussolini’s plenipotentiaries presented an ultimatum to the Greek Government to allow Axis troops to occupy its territory. The Greek Prime Minister at the time, Metaxas, replied to the brazen demand with a single word, “Oxi.” The rest is, as they say, history. Now it is the people of Georgia and Moldova, in elections and a referendum held last week, who have sent an essentially identical message to the arrogant hegemons of our day. Both Georgia and Moldova were earmarked to serve as sacrificial lambs in the collective West’s relentless war against Russia. For Georgia, a particularly self-destructive role had been envisioned. Its government was expected by the collective West to commit an act of national suicide arguably even more catastrophic than that of Germany and the associated vassal states of the European Union.

Facing an obvious military debacle in Ukraine, Western strategic thinkers came up with the brilliant idea of mending the situation by using Georgia to open a second front against Russia. The Georgian army, which in 2008 was trounced by Russian armed forces when the last attempt was made to use it in a similar hare-brained scheme, was to be thrust into battle once again as cannon fodder for the benefit of foreign interests. The strategic thinkers had overlooked an important detail that cast a long shadow over the feasibility of their scheme. In 2008 it was their stooge Saakashvili who was running Georgia. Today, the situation is fundamentally different. Whilst their puppet, French-born EU citizen Salome Zourabichvili, is President, Georgia is governed by sovereignist patriots whose litmus test for judging policies is what is best for their country. Such a policy standard, of course, is utterly abhorrent to the globalist mindset. The elections in Georgia have gone terribly wrong from their point of view. The ruling sovereignist party, Georgia Dream, won with 54% of the vote. The result was duly certified by the electoral commission.

The seriousness with which the current Georgian government views non-interference in its sovereign affairs was demonstrated not long ago. Anticipating last weekend’s elections, Prime Minister Garibashvili proposed, and by a comfortable margin Parliament approved, a law mandating transparency in the financing of foreign sponsored “NGOs,” of which about 20,000 are said to be active in Georgia. Forthwith, the foreign sponsored cabal whose machinations the transparency law was designed to make public lost their nerve. President Zourabichvili, a foreign citizen herself and former French Foreign Ministry functionary whose spoken Georgian is no better than Zelensky’s Ukrainian, is herself a prime candidate for the law’s rigorous application. Foolishly, she gave the game away by refusing to exercise the presidential duty of signing the duly passed foreign agent transparency legislation so that it could go into effect. That unladylike attempt at obstruction, however, came to naught. The law was signed in her stead by the president of the Georgian Parliament.

Read more …

“..accompanied by calls from Israeli officials to “renew settlements in Gaza” and encourage the “voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens” to other countries.”

• Genocidal Scorecard (Chris Hedges)


Bibi on Board – by Mr. Fish

United Nations report, published on Monday, lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate “the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.” This genocidal project, the report ominously warns, “is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” The Nakba or “catastrophe,” which in 1948 saw Zionist militias drive 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, carry out more than 70 massacres and seize 78 percent of historic Palestine, has returned on steroids. It is the next and, perhaps, final chapter in “a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians.” Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, who issued the report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” makes an urgent appeal to the international community to impose a full arms embargo and sanctions on Israel until the genocide of Palestinians is halted.

She calls on Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire. She demands that Israel, as required by international law and U.N. resolutions, withdraw its military and colonists from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. At the very least, Israel, unchecked, should be formally recognized as an apartheid state and persistent violator of international law, Albanese states. The U.N. should reactivate the Special Committee Against Apartheid to address the situation in Palestine, and Israel’s membership in the U.N. should be suspended. Short of these interventions, Israel’s goal, Albanese warns, will likely come into fruition. “This ongoing genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel.” she writes. “Israel has systematically and flagrantly violated international law, including Security Council resolutions and [International Criminal Court] ICJ orders. This has emboldened the hubris of Israel and its defiance of international law.

As the ICC Prosecutor has warned, ‘if we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions of its complete collapse. This is the true risk we face at this perilous moment.’” The U.N. report comes amid an Israeli blockade of northern Gaza where over 400,000 Palestinians are enduring a starvation siege and constant airstrikes in an attempt to depopulate the north. Israeli forces have killed 1,250 Palestinians in the assault, launched on October 5, a medical source told Al Jazeera. Reports from northern Gaza are difficult to obtain as internet and phone services have been cut and the few journalists on the ground continue to be killed. Israel’s ground and aerial assaults are centered on Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. Civil defense units say they have been barred by Israeli forces from reaching the sites of recent strikes and their crews have been attacked.

Israel has ordered Palestinians to flee to designated “safe zones,” but once in these “safe zones” they have been attacked and ordered to move to new “safe zones.” “Displaced people have been systematically chased down and targeted in shelters, including in United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) schools, 70 percent of which Israel has repeatedly attacked.” In May, Israel’s Rafah invasion caused the displacement of nearly one million Palestinians, driven into southern Gaza because of Israeli evacuation orders, into “uninhabitable wastelands of rubble, sewage and decomposing bodies,” Albanese notes. By August, 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians were displaced “under dire conditions,” according to the U.N.

The months of “relentless shunting of weakened humans from one unsafe area to another — fleeing bombs and bullets, with minimal chances of escape, amid loss, fear and grief, and with little access to shelter, clean water, food and healthcare — have inflicted incalculable harm, especially on children,” the report reads. “The movement of displaced Palestinians resembles the death marches of past genocides, and the Nakba. Forced displacement severs connection with the land, undermining food sovereignty and cultural belonging, and triggering further displacement. Communal bonds are broken, the social fabric shredded and reserves of resilience depleted. Systematic forced displacement contributes to ‘the destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself.’” The constant displacement — many Palestinians have been displaced nine or 10 times — from one part of Gaza to another is accompanied by calls from Israeli officials to “renew settlements in Gaza” and encourage the “voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens” to other countries.

Read more …

“..the IDF can’t provide one single shred of video evidence to back up such ludicrous claims..”

• Israel’s Attacks On Iran Were An Apocalyptic Error By Netanyahu (Jay)

Netanyahu is desperate to keep wars on all fronts alive simply so he can remain relevant. But what is hardly talked about is the state of Israel itself, with an economy in pieces. Just how far will the next U.S. president go in supporting Israel’s new war with Iran, both in terms of military spending and breathing new life into the economy which has seen 40,000 businesses go under since October 7th 2023 and almost a million Israelis leave the country. Netanyahu now is like a poker player who has used up all his IOUs at the table and is holding two pairs. How can he even believe he can take on Iran when even in Gaza and in Lebanon he is losing soldiers at a rate which should worry him and his generals. Yes, he has struck Hezbollah and reduced its capabilities but by no stretch of the imagination has he taken out the Iranian proxy which is still sending missiles and drones into Israel making the Israelis run to their air raid shelters even to this day.

The decision to strike Iran was surely out of an act of a gross political dilemma. However, the act itself has backfired on a level that neither he nor his entourage could imagine. Most of the targets were not even significantly damaged with a very low percentage of Israel’s missiles getting through Iran’s air defence which is so efficient that even Israel’s air force were too afraid actually fly into Iran’s airspace. Many in the west will be taken in by the spin from Israel’s lobby and impressive PR machine that it was a great victory and many sites were taken out, regardless of the fact that the IDF can’t provide one single shred of video evidence to back up such ludicrous claims, as it did previously in Gaza and Lebanon.

But the real defeat for Israel under Netanyahu is yet to come. Iran now has all the hard evidence it needs to strategize and hit Israel even harder than before. The erroneous strike on Iran by Netanyahu is not so much measured by the minor harm it did to a couple of weapons sites. It is by how now the myth of Israel’s military strength has been debunked once and for all. For decades Israel claimed superiority to everyone else, including Iran, and this was taken for granted by partisan western journalists who kept the dream alive. Remarkably, the strike on Israel by Iran on October 1st showed even Israelis that their air defence systems were hopelessly inadequate against Iran’s hypersonic missiles. That should have been enough to cool down the hot heads which straddle Netanyahu. At this point, the message he delivered at the UN, that there is “no place in Iran which Israel’s missiles cannot reach” should have been taken at face value and interpreted literally. Reaching Iranians sites is one thing. Actually taking them out is another.

Now, as the dust settles and Israel now waits for Iran’s response, the second myth that Israel’s strike capability was highly effective against Iran’s air defences is also blown. It seems like now Netanyahu’s folded as he has no more bluffs to play at the poker table. Unless of course he is deliberately coaxing his own country into a suicide strategy where Iran will completely desecrate Israel’s military leaving the U.S. little choice but to install itself on a grand scale. This so-called suicide strategy can’t be ruled out but seems hard to believe. The truth is that until Israel struck Iran, it didn’t know whether its own missiles and aircraft had the capability to penetrate Iran’s air defence system, supported heavily by Russia which sent it S-400 systems in August.

Read more …

“Income from oil exports jumped by 63% in January-July this year compared to the same period in 2023..”

• Tightening Russian Oil Sanctions Threatens Global Economy – Le Monde (RT)

Attempts to further tighten Western sanctions on Russian oil could undermine the global economy, French newspaper Le Monde wrote on Wednesday. The report indicated that tightening sanctions on one of the major oil-producing countries could send fertilizer prices soaring and would ultimately lead to higher global food prices. “The rise in oil prices would disproportionately affect the poorest countries, potentially pushing them into a humanitarian crisis,” US economist Catherine Wolfram was quoted as saying. Such a scenario could discredit the West in the eyes of the Global South and encourage them to strengthen ties with Russia, she suggested. Meanwhile, the CEO of US-based ClearView Energy Partners, Kevin Book, told Le Monde that sanctions could have worked at a time when most companies specializing in oil transport insurance were located in the West. “This is not the case today,” he emphasized.

Western governments have hit Russia with a barrage of sanctions over the Ukraine conflict. Among other measures, they have introduced a price cap along with an embargo on Russian seaborne oil in an attempt to hurt the country’s economy, while at the same time keeping Russian crude flowing to global markets so as not to trigger price hikes. The measures were imposed in December 2022, and were followed in February 2023 by similar restrictions on exports of Russian petroleum products. They ban Western companies from providing insurance and other services for shipments of Russian crude, unless the cargo is purchased at or below $60 per barrel, a level below the current market price. In response, Moscow banned Russian enterprises from complying with the cap and rerouted most of its energy exports to Asia, particularly India and China.

“While some measures have long-term effects, such as the ban on the export of spare parts that hinders the maintenance of military equipment, the opposite is true for oil,” Le Monde wrote, suggesting that Moscow has been successful in sidestepping the restrictions while the price of the country’s flagship Urals crude had mostly remained above the Western price cap. Reuters calculations based on traders’ data showed that prices of October Urals crude oil were trading above $65 a barrel at Russian Baltic and Black Sea ports. In July, Russian crude traded at around $80 a barrel. According to a recent report by the independent economic think tank Institute for Energy and Finance Foundation (FIEF), Russia’s energy revenues may reach record levels this year, buoyed by high export oil prices. Income from oil exports jumped by 63% in January-July this year compared to the same period in 2023, totaling 6.4 trillion rubles ($66 billion), the paper said.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Atlas

 

 

Vaccines
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851960889986937244

 

 

Cancer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851811296297259397

 

 

Pro-Trumper
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851764519825019081

 

 

Grok

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 5 2024

Feb 052024
 
 February 5, 2024  Posted by at 9:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Allegory of the Planets and Continents 1752

 

• Beijing Powerless As Chinese Stocks Crater (ZH)
• Brzezinski’s Barbaric Dream. A Broader War, “Spreading Towards Iran” (Stea)
• US Not Prepared for War Against Iran and ‘Axis of Resistance’ (Sp.)
• EU Needs An Enemy – Kremlin (RT)
• EU Gives Zelensky Life Support for Himself and His Regime. But .. (Jay)
• EU Citizens’ Taxes Going To Terrorists – Moscow (RT)
• Possible NATO Corps Deployment to Ukraine May Become ‘Suicide Mission’ (Sp.)
• What Powerful Force Prevents the US from Defending its Borders? (PCR)
• Shrinking Populations Fuel Divisive Politics (NYT)
• Facebook: Tool for State Censorship, Goldmine for US Intel (Sp.)
• Get The Zuck Out Of Here: 20 Years Later (RT)
• Novichok Public Inquiry Turns Into A Secret Farce Before It Begins (Helmer)
• E Jean Carroll Lawyer Says Trump Used Coded Version Of C-Word Against Her (G.)
• Musk Took Drugs With Tesla, SpaceX Execs – WSJ (RT)

 

 

Congresswoman Luna about the new bipartisan Senate bill:

 

 

Farmers

 

 

 

 

Weinstein Border

 

 

RFK Jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1754107987000500379

RFK/Smith

 

 

Elon Musk: “In the “bet-you-didn’t-know” category,
Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas issued written guidance making it clear that:
1. Illegal presence alone is not grounds for deportation.
2. Criminal charges, convictions or gang membership alone are not enough for deportation.
You basically have to be a convicted axe murderer to be deported! That’s because every deportation is a lost vote.”

 

 

 

 

Not much to do with Trump’s promised new tariffs, I would think. This has been coming for a while.

Zerohedge thinks it’s serious though: “..every day that Beijing is just more talk and no action brings us closer to the world’s biggest and most violent social revolt seen in history…”

• Beijing Powerless As Chinese Stocks Crater (ZH)

The China Securities Regulatory Commission vowed on Sunday to prevent abnormal fluctuations, saying it would guide more medium- and long-term funds into the market and crack down on illegal activities including malicious short selling and insider trading. The brief statement followed a sudden plunge of as much as 3.4% in the benchmark CSI 300 Index on Friday — and an outpouring of frustration on social media from individual investors just days before families across the country gather to celebrate the Lunar New Year. “The statement sought to stabilize investor sentiment, but didn’t touch on fundamental problems including a lack of confidence and huge economic uncertainty,” said Shen Meng, director at investment bank Chanson & Co. “Those issues are the causes of abnormal market fluctuation.”

While authorities have taken piecemeal steps to support the economy and markets in recent months and have discussed a potential stock stabilization fund, they’ve yet to announce any major moves to stop the selloff. Weak economic data, simmering geopolitical tensions with the US, a worsening property crisis and an opaque crackdown on the financial sector have all weighed on investor sentiment. As reported last week, China’s CSI 300 tumbled 6.3% in January, a record sixth straight month of losses. Shares then rallied briefly toward the end of the month after Bloomberg reported that authorities were seeking to mobilize about 2 trillion yuan ($278 billion) for a stabilization fund, but the market has since renewed its decline, reaching the lowest level since January 2019 as once again the Beijing trial baloon was just that, and nothing more. .

Meanwhile, the hail mary media bullshit and lies continued, and over the weekend, 21st Century Business Herald daily newspaper reported that authorities should set up a stabilization fund as soon as possible to boost market confidence, with an aim to get its size to 10 trillion yuan or more. Next up it will be 100 trillion in promises, then 1 quadrillion, only by then the SHCOMP will hit 0. Meanwhile, in a sign of how exasperated some investors have become, thousands flocked to a social media account of the US embassy in Beijing to vent their frustrations over the economy and slumping share prices. In the comment section of the embassy’s Weibo post on giraffe protection on Friday evening, some 53,000 users added remarks by Saturday evening, winning over 300,000 likes. China’s internet users often struggle to find a venue to air grievances about the economy or government performance, with official accounts of Chinese state agencies or media usually either disabling the comment function or only showing selected feedback.

In the end, the outcome is a clear one: either Beijing will watch powerless as 1 billion furious Chinamen start rioting in the streets as both the real estate and capital markets crater – and only then, after countless are dead, will it inject trillions into the economy, or someone in Beijing will come to their senses and do so before there is bloodshed… Not that that’s a viable solution of course: at best, that’s kicking the can by a few years, but in the grand scheme of things, can kicking is all the world has left. And now all eyes are now on China and every day that Beijing is just more talk and no action brings us closer to the world’s biggest and most violent social revolt seen in history.

Read more …

It was Brzezinski who invented the plot of a war between Ukraine and Russia.

• Brzezinski’s Barbaric Dream. A Broader War, “Spreading Towards Iran” (Stea)

In a recent interview, Paul Craig Roberts, former economic adviser (US Department of the Treasury) to the late President Ronald Reagan, outlined, with astonishing foresight, the trajectory that the current Middle East crisis may follow, and his insight is both brilliant and terrifying. To paraphrase Roberts’s analysis, the Israeli-Gaza conflict is merely the beginning of a widening conflict in the Middle East, spreading toward the neocon’s main target, Iran. Though Iran is extremely powerful now, the conflict will greatly weaken the country, making possible the West’s stealthy infiltration of jihadists into the Central Asian countries which border Iran and extend to both the Russian borders and, indeed the Chinese border, with Xinjiang, bordering Kazakhstan. Though Roberts does not mention China, the logic of his thesis would extend to China.

The purpose of these jihadists, infiltrated into countries neighboring Russia, with large Islamic populations which have, historically lived in peace with citizens of very diverse ethnic and religious identities, including Russian, Catholic, Jewish citizens, often intermarrying, will be, as Brzezinski planned. This purpose will be,[..] to incite violent, extremist religious separatist movements, destabilizing these peaceful Central Asian countries, fomenting “color revolutions” (as was tried, but failed in Kazakhstan recently), and engineering bloody putsch, in these countries, similar to the one incited in Ukraine in 2014 with the ensuing devastating wars. These infiltrated jihadists would spread and continue inciting violent separatist movements, next, within the Russian Federation itself, with Bashkortostan and Tartarstan on the Volga, with large Islamic populations, again, also hitherto living peacefully with other extremely diverse religious and ethnic citizens.

If successful in inciting separatist movements on the Volga, Russia could be isolated from the enormously rich resources in Siberia, and reduced in size to less than the area of France, and impoverished, accordingly. Though Russia may be aware of this lethal Western agenda, the militarization of the rabidly Russophobic Baltics, to the North, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and the recent accession of Finland and Sweden into Nato, with planned “Steadfast Defender 2024, including 31 NATO participants, will threaten Russia from the north and west, reducing its ability to protect itself from threats from destabilized Central Asian neighbors, and demanding that Russia fight for its survival on two fronts.

Although Brzezinski, in “The Grand Chessboard”, describes a partnership between Russia and China as a disaster to be avoided at all costs, NATO’s provocation of Russia has forced a war between Russia and Ukraine, which Brzezinski fiercely advocated in order to isolate Russia from Europe. Though the Russia-China friendship would appear to protect Russia from the aforementioned crisis, at least now, if the deadly agenda Paul Craig Roberts describes becomes a reality, the infiltration of jihadists would likely spread to China, which has, also, a large Islamic population, hitherto living peacefully with diverse citizenry.

However, as violent, externally engineered separatist movements have already occurred in Xinjiang, in the West of China, these could be exacerbated by further outside infiltration of jihadists, and could metastasize throughout China. Further, the eastern part of China could be existentially threatened by the new “Axis” of Japan, South Korea and the United States, menacing China’s survival, and again forcing China to divert its defenses from the West to the East, increasing its vulnerability, and diminishing its ability to assist Russia, amidst the rampant chaos created by the Brzezinski plan, and Washington’s current neocon agenda, world domination.

Read more …

“The United States, its assets across Iraq would be crushed. It would be overrun and by extension Syria as well and Lebanon. The world has changed. This is not just Iran, by the way. This is the whole of West Asia.”

• US Not Prepared for War Against Iran and ‘Axis of Resistance’ (Sp.)

US officials have reportedly signaled that plans have been approved for a series of strikes against targets in Iraq and Syria. That would be in response to a recent drone attack on US personnel in the Middle East — which claimed the lives of three soldiers and left 34 wounded. In the wake of the strike Bloomberg claimed the Biden administration was considering a covert strike on Iran or Iranian officials as possible options. But University of Tehran Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik that directly targeting Iran would be a major mistake and a major miscalculation by Washington. He suggested that scenario was very unlikely, given Iran’s missile defense and drone capabilities, as well as the vulnerability of US bases which are scattered across the Middle Eastern region.

“Let’s assume that the United States strikes Iran,” Marandi said. “The United States has bases all across the Persian Gulf. The Iranians will hit out at those bases, and then the Iranians will also punish those countries that host those bases.” The professor warned the fallout from the tit-for-tat attacks would send oil and gas prices “through the roof.” “The Red Sea would no longer be safe for oil and gas. The Western economies would collapse if there was a major escalation in our region,” Marandi underlined. “The United States, its assets across Iraq would be crushed. It would be overrun and by extension Syria as well and Lebanon. The world has changed. This is not just Iran, by the way. This is the whole of West Asia.” Given the latest US media reports, it appears far more plausible that the US would attack targets in Iraq and Syria, Marandi continued.

“[The US] will claim some sort of ‘victory over terrorists’ and that sort of nonsense which they usually say,” the professor said. “But it will be like in Yemen, they will have very little impact because the resistance to the US occupation, the illegal occupation in Iraq and Syria is very well hidden. Their assets are underground, they are spread out. And all the United States would do would be to make people angrier and make the resistance more popular, both at home and abroad. That’s exactly what we saw in Yemen.” Marandi noted that most recently instead of pushing the Israeli regime to end the slaughter in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, the US tried to facilitate the genocide by attacking Yemen. Since early January the US and its allies conducted a series of strikes against the Ansar Allah-led government in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, also known as the Houthis after their leader.

“They launched many missiles, wasted a lot of money, but they were incapable of changing the balance of power. And Yemen continues to easily strike ships. Why?” the professor asked. “Because all of their assets are underground. Their mobile radar is well-protected underground. Their missiles and drones are well protected underground. They come out, strike the target and go back underground. So the Americans failed in Yemen. They made ‘Ansar Allah,’ or what the West likes to call the Houthis, very popular across the region and across the world, and they’ll only do the same in Iraq and Syria.”

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Just like the US..

• EU Needs An Enemy – Kremlin (RT)

Recent statements by EU politicians about the possibility of a war with Russia serve their own domestic interests and distract the population from internal issues like tanking economies, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested. At the same time, claims of an allegedly imminent conflict with Moscow also help to justify continued funding for Kiev, he said. On February 1 EU leaders signed off on a €50-billion ($54-billion) package of economic aid to Ukraine. This followed months of back-and-forth on the matter. “They [politicians in EU countries] need to continue to construct an image of the enemy, to do it in a textured, prominent way, in order to justify the increase in spending. And, you see, the allocation of 50 billion – on the one hand, for the EU this amount is not a very big deal, but on the other hand it is still noticeable against the backdrop of the crisis markers manifesting themselves in the economies of EU countries,” Peskov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday.

This effort to distract populations from domestic problems with talk about a purportedly looming conflict with Russia has been undertaken by multiple countries of the bloc, the spokesman pointed out. In particular, Germany has clearly taken such an approach to hide the internal issues it has been facing lately, he suggested. “Germany is an economic engine of the EU, and now whole sectors of the German economy are losing their attractiveness and competitiveness. And, of course, against this backdrop, it is best to divert attention by creating some kind of enemy and maintaining its image. And for this there is probably no one better than [Russia] in their opinion,” the spokesman explained.

In recent months, senior officials from various EU countries have been urging their citizenry to brace for an allegedly inevitable conflict with Russia, with governments redirecting funding towards their militaries. Berlin has actively taken such a route, adopting a new military and strategic doctrine late last year that aims for “war-ready” forces. At the time, Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed the country needed “a long-term, permanent change of course,” with the goal of creating “a powerful Bundeswehr” actually able to fight in the war that has been flagged as imminent. Russia has repeatedly dismissed claims that it is somehow seeking to attack any EU or NATO countries, describing such allegations as “absurd.” Late last year, for instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Moscow has “no interest… geopolitically, economically or militarily… in waging war against [the US-led NATO bloc].”

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“..They don’t actually believe there will be a war with Russia but it’s a great story to put out there which pays dividends…”

• EU Gives Zelensky Life Support for Himself and His Regime. But .. (Jay)

So by hook or by crook, the EU got its funding for Ukraine agreed. But before you get too excited, perhaps it’s worth pondering the amount. A pathetic 50bn euros spread over four years! Is this money really for Zelensky and his cabal to keep the war going though, or simply a massive bribe for him to pass most of it on, in order for him to stay in power? What is the West worried about with Zelensky leaving office too early, some astute analysts will no doubt ask. From a military perspective it would be too little too late and so it’s all destined for public services and what some EU apparatchiks are calling “keeping the lights on”. But EU leaders should be aware that a good part of this money – probably at least half of it – will go directly to Zelensky and his circle of close aides and ministers whose only job is to keep him in power.

As president, he has control over the budgets of the government ministries including the finance ministry and it would be absurd to assume that most of this money will not be diverted in a regime which redefines the scales of corruption and embezzlement. Even the CIA chief Bill Mad Dog Burns had to fly in recently to Kiev to tell Zelensky personally to “not steal too much” from the next bundle which the Biden administration is expected to sign off in the coming weeks, which is expected to be around 65 billion dollars in military aid. And so the Americans appear to be ready to continue to give the military kit, despite much of it, according to my own investigation is ending up on the black market in Libya, while the EU is happy to pay the bills of the government and salaries. The Atlantic Council sums it up thus:

“This agreement is also an important signal to Washington that Europe is stepping up and is with Ukraine for the long run. Coincidentally, debates over aid packages to Ukraine on both sides of the Atlantic unfolded at the same time last year in December and now”. “Europe missed an opportunity to better impact the U.S. debate then. The EU hit the mark this time, showing Washington that Europe is doing its part”. But doing what part exactly? The EU default position on Ukraine is to blindly follow the Biden administration and its fatalistic support of the Ukraine regime until the abyss approaches. Indeed, most of last year Biden could only repeat the mantra over and over again “whatever it takes” and the EU followed, with many member states devastated by the decision. Germany’s economy is looking like a basket case while folks in the UK pay sky-high utility bills which in most cases look like a zero has been incongruously added by mistake.

Most EU countries have no military stock left to defend themselves against any threat – which does tend to take away the credibility of the absurd narrative that Russia is about to invade at any moment. And the EU itself continues to borrow money that has to be paid back by the next generation of taxpayers long after corrupt elitists like Ursula von der Leyen have left office and only have their dirty vaccine deals to fund their retirement plan while Europe starves. There is much talk in Brussels and on member state level that more money needs to be found for the EU project and that it needs to develop its own defence policy, without using the words EU army. Even in Britain, the conservative party are preparing for war with Russia. Well, strictly speaking senior officials are preparing the media narrative. They don’t actually believe there will be a war with Russia but it’s a great story to put out there which pays dividends.

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When you bomb bakeries, yes…

This is what Ukraine will switch to: targeting civilians.

• EU Citizens’ Taxes Going To Terrorists – Moscow (RT)

The West is complicit in the Ukrainian military’s killing of civilians in Donbass, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The diplomat was referring to a Ukrainian attack on a bakery in the city of Lisichansk, apparently involving weaponry provided by Kiev’s allies, which claimed the lives of at least 28 civilians. Following the attack, the acting head of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately targeting the building on a weekend to maximize civilian casualties. In a post on his Telegram channel, he added that “emergency services have managed to rescue ten people from under the rubble,” with doctors doing their best to save their lives. In a statement on Saturday, Zakharova said that “according to preliminary information, the strike was conducted using Western weaponry.”

She described the shelling as a “terrorist attack” meant to convey Kiev’s “gratefulness for the ‘generous’ financial support by EU countries.” The foreign ministry spokeswoman added that the EU nations’ citizens should be cognizant of what their taxes are being spent on, namely “deadly weapons systems” used by the Ukrainian military to “kill civilians.” “We suggest that Parisians imagine how they go in the morning for a baguette, and Rome’s residents – to have a cup of coffee with cornetto – but instead of freshly-baked pastry return home with relatives wounded or killed by Ukrainian terrorists,” Zakharova charged. Echoing Pasechnik, the diplomat alleged that Kiev’s forces had been well aware that civilians, including families with children and the elderly, would typically flock to the bakery on Saturdays. She added that the building had been razed to the ground as a result of the shelling.

According to Zakharova, the deadly incident is “further proof of the criminal nature of the Kiev regime.” She went on to quote Russian President Vladimir Putin, who on Friday characterized the Ukrainian military as a “terrorist organization that attacks ambulances.” He was referring to several attacks on paramedics working in Donbass last month. The foreign ministry spokeswoman concluded by saying that Moscow will inform “international organizations of yet another terrorist attack on the part of Zelensky’s gang.” The official noted that Russia expects a swift and unequivocal condemnation of Kiev’s actions. Authorities in the LPR declared Sunday a day of mourning for the 28 victims of the attack on the bakery, which include one child. Pasechnik vowed that those responsible would eventually be brought to justice “for this horrible tragedy, for every death.”

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“..Russia has complete air dominance, escalatory dominance, logistical dominance, ammunition dominance..”

• Possible NATO Corps Deployment to Ukraine May Become ‘Suicide Mission’ (Sp.)

The UK has urged its NATO allies to consider sending the alliance’s expeditionary force to Ukraine, an informed source told Sputnik. According to the source, the alleged move came “in connection with the unfavorable developments in the Ukrainian theater of military operations for Kiev”. The insider added that Britain also called on NATO to consider imposing a no-fly zone over the territory controlled by the Zelensky regime and to increase military aid to Ukraine. ”The UK’s reported plans about deploying NATO’s expeditionary corps to Ukraine is “a fantastical delusion on the part of the Brits and has no foundation in reality,” retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik. “But just because the Brits are insane does not mean Russia can ignore them. It is a serious proposal,” he added.

Johnson was partly echoed by Matthew Gordon-Banks, an international relations consultant, former member of Parliament and retired senior research fellow at the UK Defence Academy, who said he didn’t think the rumors of a NATO force in Ukraine should be taken seriously. “The suggestions I have heard are quite unrealistic at present,” Gordon-Banks stated. Asked to comment on the “unfavorable development of events” for Kiev on the battlefield, he emphasized that “things are collapsing in Kiev quite quickly”. “[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky has not been able to fire his top general, and I think he is now very much a ‘lame duck’ president,” Gordon-Banks argued, referring to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny.

The same tone was struck by Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel turned geopolitical and military affairs consultant, who warned that if the information about London’s plans is true, and “if this is somebody’s dream, it could quickly become a nightmare for British and NATO forces.”But it is not a realistic solution or proposal. Russia has complete air dominance, escalatory dominance, logistical dominance, ammunition dominance. This would be catastrophic for any UK forces and definitely would show a symbol of direct NATO involvement, which could really be dangerous, as far as escalation goes,” Rasmussen emphasized, noting that “the British forces would probably be wiped out, fairly rapidly.” The US Army veteran suggested that someone in the UK military might be having “some type of delusional experience” for even suggesting such a scenario. “It’s a suicide mission for those troops. And it definitely would pull NATO into a much more dangerous situation and direct confrontation [with Russia],” Rasmussen concluded.

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“When the Western Roman Empire was overrun, Rome ceased to exist. How can it be any different for America?”

• What Powerful Force Prevents the US from Defending its Borders? (PCR)

Israel can evict Palestinians from the the Palestinians’ villages in Palestine. Tiny Latvia can deport Russian ethnics born in Latvia for not learning to speak Latvian, but mighty America cannot prevent millions of immigrant-invaders from illegally entering the US each year and remaining. How can this be? Clearly the US government is in a conspiracy with the NGOs that are recruiting and funding the invasion in order to replace the white American population. Why is the US government cooperating with anti-American NGOs to steal America from Americans? Why do Americans sit on their butts and permit their country to be stolen? Why do a majority of American women vote for the Democrats who are aiding and abetting the theft of America? When Washington speaks of “American national interests,” whose interests is meant?

The military/security complex’s interest? How does a tower of babel have a national interest? Why is it in America’s national interest to be overrun by invaders? Why is Washington worried about attack from Russia and China but not from the vastly larger army of the anti-American NGOs? Does the US military have any role other than protecting the profits of the military/security complex? How can the United States be a country when it has no borders? How can something as abnormal as a country without borders continue to exist? When the Western Roman Empire was overrun, Rome ceased to exist. How can it be any different for America? Why are voices that speak for American identity, such as VDARE, suppressed by American prosecutorial authorities?

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3rd day in a row that we’re talking about birth rates.

• Shrinking Populations Fuel Divisive Politics (NYT)

In the 2000 film “Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe’s comedy-drama about rock musicians in the 1970s, the character played by Zooey Deschanel gives her younger brother some advice. “Listen to ‘Tommy’ with a candle burning, and you’ll see your whole future,” she says. I’m going to borrow that thought: Stare at the map accompanying this article with — or without — a candle burning, and you’ll see your whole future. The map shows how the number of working-age people around the world is forecast to change by 2050. Europe’s working-age population will shrink. So will that of Brazil, China, Chile, Japan and Russia, among others. And that change could have extremely negative consequences for those societies, without mitigation. “Working-age population” can sound technical and abstract. But these are the people who staff our offices and factories, work farms, treat the sick, care for the very old and the very young.

They are the ones who have children and raise them; who build new things and fix old ones. When that population shrinks, those activities become more difficult, more expensive and less frequent. The economy slows down. Fewer workers getting paid generates less tax revenue. As the population ages, more people rely on government social security programs to fund their retirements and health care, putting those vital programs further under strain. This is mostly a story about birthrates. As countries get richer, people have fewer children; and it turns out that once birthrates fall, it’s really hard to get them back up again. Although a number of countries have tried to boost fertility through tax breaks, cash bonuses and even awards for heroism given to women who bear many children, none of those programs have made more than a marginal difference.

But look at the map a little longer, and you see the phenomenon that has allowed a few wealthy countries to cushion the blow of demographic change: immigration. Australia, Canada and the United States have small green dots, denoting modest growth in their working-age populations. That’s largely because those countries take in relatively high numbers of immigrants, who not only bolster population numbers directly when they arrive, but also tend to have more children than the native-born population. In the United States, for instance, the modest increase in births since the 1970s was entirely driven by births to immigrant mothers. In Canada, immigration is the sole driver of population growth, according to government statistics.

Immigration, to be clear, can only ever be a partial solution to this demographic shift. To put the numbers in perspective, just to stay level by 2050, Europe would have to absorb about half of the entire working-age population growth in India, the world’s most populous country. China, facing an even bigger shortfall, could take all the growth of Pakistan and all that of Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country — and still be 2 million short of where it stands now. At the same time, this map strongly suggests that being able to attract and integrate large numbers of immigrants will be an important competitive advantage for countries in the coming decades. Doing so, however, will require overcoming political barriers that arise, partly, out of the same demographic shifts.

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Gretarded.

• Facebook: Tool for State Censorship, Goldmine for US Intel (Sp.)

As Americans, Europeans and others around the world signed up, logged on and voluntarily offered up private information that companies and intel agencies would have paid a fortune to get their hands on just a few short decades ago, powerful forces quickly realized the importance of collecting and engineering this new form of online human interaction. “It is clear that intelligence agencies throughout the world, not only the US, can use Facebook to their advantage,” Ryan Hartwig, Facebook contractor-turned whistleblower and co-author of ‘Behind the Mask of Facebook: A Whistleblower’s Shocking Story of Big Tech Bias and Censorship,’ told Sputnik in an interview. “The government launders their censorship through various NGOs and institutions on behalf of the US government,” Hartwig said, pointing, for example, to a 2021 report by the Stanford Internet Observatory entitled “Combating Information Manipulation: A Playbook for Elections and Beyond,” which plainly outlines tools the company uses to “remove the spread of malign information” from social media.

In his book, coauthored with attorney Kent Heckenlively, Hartwig documents how, while working as a content moderator for Facebook in the 2010s, he had witnessed the platform’s disturbing transformation after the 2016 US elections into a tool for systematically suppressing conservative viewpoints while elevating liberal ones, and cracking down on some forms of suspected hate speech while amplifying others. Of course, conservatives aren’t the only ones targeted by the social media giant’s censorship leviathan, with non-liberal left groups, critics of the US military-industrial complex, Big Pharma, Big Tech and other elite forces which run America and much of the world also falling victim. Documented instances of censorship by Facebook include the scrubbing of criticism of US and European immigration policy, climate policies, vaccines and vaccine mandates, criticisms of Facebook itself, and the vagaries of US foreign policy, with posts on these issues occasionally deleted outright, but more often hidden or deranked without users being informed using the platform’s complex, non-open source algorithm.

In 2022, Facebook rolled out a special carve-out of exceptions to its anti-hate speech rules to allow users to make explicitly Russophobic posts, issue death threats against Russian officials, use dehumanizing language to refer to Russian troops, and even offer praise for the neo-Nazi Azov** Regiment, despite the social media giant’s ban on content featuring Nazi and neo-Nazi ideology. “Facebook manipulates public opinion by suppressing unpopular opinions, or allowing newsworthy exceptions for the people they like,” Hartwig explained, noting this extends not just to big name issues, but even extremely minute details bordering on psychopathy. “For example, they made a specific rule to protect Greta Thunberg from being attacked or called ‘Gretarded’,” the former content moderator recalled, referring to the WEF-promoted climate activist. “Normally, public figures, even young individuals like Greta are allowed to be called retarded. Facebook made an exception to protect her,” Hartwig said.

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I heard a similar story last year about another company 🙂 : “The company’s headcount decreased by 22% year-over-year, following layoffs, indicating a strategic shift in its workforce.”

• Get The Zuck Out Of Here: 20 Years Later (RT)

As Facebook approached its adolescence and entered the realm of maturity, its impact on society became increasingly significant. The platform, once a college-focused social hub, had evolved into a global information-sharing powerhouse, shaping not only individual interactions but also influencing broader societal dynamics. Despite the controversies, Facebook’s financial triumphs were undeniable. Meta’s Q4 2023 earnings report showcased a strong rebound in its online ad business, with a 25% year-over-year increase in sales. The company’s expenses decreased, and its operating margin more than doubled, reflecting successful cost-cutting measures. Net income also saw a significant increase, reaching $14 billion.

In addition to the positive financial results, Meta announced its first-ever dividend payment and a $50 billion share buyback, signaling confidence in its financial standing. However, the financial success was not without challenges. Meta’s Reality Labs unit, responsible for virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, generated over $1 billion in sales but recorded a $4.65 billion loss, highlighting the risks associated with cutting-edge technologies. Looking ahead this year, Meta anticipates first-quarter sales in the range of $34.5-37 billion, with expenses in 2024 projected at $94-99 billion. The company’s headcount decreased by 22% year-over-year, following layoffs, indicating a strategic shift in its workforce.

Zuckerberg has trumpeted the role of artificial intelligence in the company’s growth trajectory, emphasizing continued investments in AI and computing infrastructure. However, he has also acknowledged the company’s commitment to maintaining a relatively lean workforce, balancing technological innovation with operational efficiency. The confluence of financial triumphs, persistent challenges, and controversies marked the pivotal phase in Facebook’s transformation into Meta. The rebranding aimed to thrust the company to the forefront of the metaverse. However, this strategic maneuver encountered skepticism and formidable challenges, notably in light of substantial losses associated with metaverse-related technologies.

During its adolescent years, Facebook endeavored to stay relevant among younger generations. By introducing features like ‘Reels’, it sought to emulate the success of competitors such as TikTok. Yet, these initiatives met with only limited success, as the platform’s user base continued to age, resulting in diminished engagement, particularly from Generation Z. The challenges extended beyond shifting demographics. Facebook’s reputation suffered amid data privacy controversies. Younger users, in particular, perceived the platform as less trustworthy, further impinging on engagement. In response, the company embarked on a broader identity shift.

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He can’t seem to decide if Skripal is alive or not. But certainly strange that we’ve never seen father nor daughter again.

• Novichok Public Inquiry Turns Into A Secret Farce Before It Begins (Helmer)

In a London courtroom on Friday, Lord Anthony Hughes, the retired judge whom the British government has appointed to run a public inquiry into the alleged Novichok poisonings of March and June 2018, collapsed into a farce of state secrecy. Not even the open hearings which are now scheduled to start later this year, on October 14, will in fact be open, Hughes told lawyers for the Home Office and for the family of Dawn Sturgess. This is because the police and the security services have told the judge they want a livestream default or broadcasting delay of at least fifteen minutes, possibly longer when “the police will decide if any disclosure at all will be made”, a government lawyer told the judge.Hughes announced: “I absolutely accept how difficult it is when you are batting in the dark…but it is a situation which has simply got to be coped with.”

Follow the archive on the official investigation of the cause of Dawn Sturgess’s death in June 2018, allegedly from a Novichok poison which Russian assassins left behind after they had attacked Sergei and Yulia Skripal the previous March. The Skripals have been assigned a lawyer, Adam Chapman, to represent them in the Hughes proceeding, but he wasn’t present in court on Friday. To date, Chapman hasn’t asked a question, made a written submission, or reported what the Skripals want to say about the Novichok affair. Chapman’s silence confirms that if the Skripals are still alive, they are being held by the British government incommunicado. Hughes has yet to rule on whether they will be called to testify as witnesses, and if so, whether their testimony will be given in open or secret session.

Hughes ran Friday’s hearing to just under 90 minutes. A switch of stream engineering companies and a failure by Paul Dunlay, the judge’s technician in charge of live-streaming, excluded reporters who had registered to hear the proceeding from their offices. Hughes’s spokesman apologized for the “confusion”. Dunlay said “we are not responsible for your IT systems security which may have blocked this auto response.” “My starting point,” Hughes claimed, “has always been that this is a public hearing and everything is in public unless there is a necessity for it not to be. But given the circumstances of this Inquiry – involving as it does the use of a chemical weapon on British soil – it will be of no surprise that there will inevitably be some material that will be CLOSED. Indeed that was the reason for the conversion of the original Inquest to a public Inquiry.”

Just how little will be open — and just how large “the necessity for it not to be” — were revealed in Friday’s hearing. Closed circuit television (CCTV) tapes from Salisbury and Amesbury which the police seized after the Skripal attack and the Sturgess death, and which have not been released to date, are to be allowed in evidence in the open hearing, but only, Judge Hughes has conceded, in the form of a “compilation”. What has been withheld will remain a state secret. A police report combining the Skripal incident in Salisbury of March 4, 2018, and the Sturgess incident in Amesbury four months later, on June 30, 2018, has been partially released to the Sturgess family’s lawyers, led by Michael Mansfield KC. But on Friday he told Hughes the evidential value of the report has already been compromised.

“There are 17 pages of redactions,” Mansfield said, “not all of them total pages, although the further you go into the report, starting at page, for example — it should be the same on yours, so that is page 53 onwards. There is nothing visible there, or the 20 succeeding pages. Altogether 17 pages in which, again, if we can just say, there must be questions arising there and in relation to the open and closed divide, it would be of great help if we did have a gist.” Mansfield went on to refer to a section he has read in the police report entitled “Target”. “I hope I am not exaggerating it, there are some pretty astonishing observations in this section alone and if what is said in this section alone about the target, there is and must be very much more material, or absence of material.”

Mansfield was intimating in public that the police report he has seen is missing the key elements of how the alleged Russian-made Novichok got into Dawn Sturgess’s hands and killed her, as well as the police account of how their searches of Sturgess’s house failed to detect the Novichok in a perfume bottle standing on the kitchen table until July 11, 2018 – eleven days after Sturgess had collapsed and been taken to Salisbury District Hospital, and after police reported their search of the house for suspected narcotics.


Dawn Sturgess, died between June 30 and July 8, 2018; Sergei Skripal, died in British custody at an unknown date after his last telephone call to Russia on June 19, 2019; Adam Chapman, the London lawyer appointed by the British government on March 25, 2022 — without evidence of Skripal consent.

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What am I supposed to make of this?

• E Jean Carroll Lawyer Says Trump Used Coded Version Of C-Word Against Her (G.)

E Jean Carroll’s attorney says Donald Trump used a coded expression to call her the C-word during a deposition before she helped the magazine columnist win an $83.3m verdict in her defamation case against the former president. Roberta Kaplan shared the anecdote during an appearance Friday on the George Conway Explains It All podcast, saying it happened while Trump was deposed at his Mar-a-Lago resort as part of an unrelated, since-dismissed case in which he faced accusations of collaborating with a fraudulent marketing company. As Kaplan told it, at the end of the questioning, Trump’s attorneys ensured the two sides were no longer on the record before he looked at her and remarked: “See you next Tuesday.” The phrase is well-known, thinly veiled code for perhaps the most offensive misogynistic insult that can be directed at a woman, combining words that sound like the first two letters of the slur – “C” and “U” – along with words that start with the letters “N” and “T”.

Kaplan told Conway that she initially didn’t understand the meaning of what Trump said because the opposing sides weren’t scheduled to meet that upcoming Tuesday. “I, thank God, had no idea what that meant, so I said to him, ‘What are you talking about? I’m coming back on Wednesday,’” Kaplan remarked. “Literally, it was an honest answer. I had no idea what he’s talking about.” Colleagues of Kaplan informed her what the former president had meant by saying “see you next Tuesday” once they were all in their car driving away from Trump’s property, she said. “That is a teenage boy-level joke,” the podcast co-host Sarah Longwell said. Kaplan replied: “Had I known, I for sure would have gotten angry … I looked like I was being above it all, which I wasn’t. I just did not know.”

Conway – a conservative attorney formerly married to Trump’s White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway – punctuated Kaplan’s recollections by saying: “So that’s just an amazing story.” According to Kaplan, Trump had also thrown a temper tantrum that day when his legal team offered to provide lunch to Kaplan and her associates. “There was a huge pile of documents, exhibits, sitting in front of him, and he took the pile and he just threw it across the table – and stormed out of the room,” Kaplan said. That claim about Trump throwing papers across a table in particular called to mind another anecdote produced by testimony to the congressional committee that investigated the Capitol attack staged by the ex-president’s supporters after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. A former White House aide testified that Trump angrily threw a plate of food at a wall in the White House – smearing it with ketchup – after his attorney general at the time publicly denied Trump’s lies that there had been voter fraud in the race won by Biden.

Friday’s remarks from Kaplan were also sure to open Trump to renewed criticism over his mistreatment of women. Conway went on CNN later Friday and said Trump was “a pig” for how he addressed Kaplan, according to the attorney. Kaplan represented Carroll in a separate legal matter that saw the former Elle magazine writer sue Trump on accusations that he sexually abused her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s. Carroll’s lawsuit asserted that Trump then defamed her as he attacked her credibility.

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If and when you say about an outlet that takes itself very seriously that it “..is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird [poop emoji]..”, then you get this. Which sorta proves your point. And the rest will chime in, too.

• Musk Took Drugs With Tesla, SpaceX Execs – WSJ (RT)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been taking illegal drugs for years, on many occasions alongside the board members and directors of his companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing sources who claimed to have either witnessed the drug use or had knowledge of it. According to the report, Musk has attended a number of social gatherings in recent years with Tesla board member Joe Gebbia, where he recreationally took ketamine, an anesthetic commonly used to euthanize house pets. Other directors, Antonio Gracias, Kimbal Musk and Steve Jurvetson, have reportedly consumed drugs like ecstasy and LSD with him at several parties, including those held at Hotel El Ganzo, a boutique hotel in Mexico allegedly known for its drug-fueled events.

According to several sources, some of the directors felt pressured to consume drugs with Musk either because refraining could upset the billionaire, or result in them “losing the social capital” of being in the CEO’s circle. Sources told the news outlet that Musk’s drug use was common knowledge among several current and former Tesla and SpaceX officials, and the volume of his consumption has become concerning in recent years. However, the companies’ boards haven’t investigated Musk’s alleged drug use nor documented any claims. On the one hand, the use of illegal substances violates antidrug policies at both firms, while on the other, official board minutes could become public, and if they mentioned Musk’s drug problems, it could put SpaceX’s federal contracts and Musk’s security clearance at risk, the report notes.

The WSJ already reported on Musk’s alleged illegal drug use last month, claiming that the CEO has a history of using drugs including cocaine, ecstasy, LSD and psychedelic mushrooms. In response to that news piece, Musk lashed out at WSJ on X, saying that the news outlet “is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird [poop emoji].” Musk noted that he regularly took random drug tests at SpaceX, which he never failed. This claim was backed by his lawyer, Alex Spiro.Later, Musk also tweeted: “If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1754340103873564988

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• FREEMAN DYSON Emeritus Professor, Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies (2009)


THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING, THERE IS ONLY REGIONAL WARMING (AND IT’S A GOOD THING!):

“The change that’s now going on is very strongly concentrated in the Arctic. In fact in three respects, it’s not global, which I think is very important. First of all, it is mainly in the Arctic. Secondly, it’s mainly in the winter rather than summer. And thirdly, it’s mainly in the night rather than at the daytime. In all three respects, the warming is happening where it is cold, not where it is hot. The people in Greenland love it. They tell you it’s made their lives a lot easier. They hope it continues. I am not saying none of these consequences are happening. I am just questioning whether they are harmful. There’s a lot made out of the people who died in heat waves. And there is no doubt that we have heat waves and people die. What they don’t say is actually five times as many people die of cold in winters as die of heat in summer. And it is also true that more of the warming happens in winter than in summer.

So, if anything, it’s heavily favorable as far as that goes. It certainly saves more lives in winter than it costs in summer.So that kind of argument is never made. And I see a systematic bias in the way things are reported. Anything that looks bad is reported, and anything that looks good is not reported.A lot of these things are not anything to do with human activities. Take the shrinking of glaciers, which certainly has been going on for 300 years and has been well documented. So it certainly wasn’t due to human activities, most of the time. There’s been a very strong warming, in fact, ever since the Little Ice Age, which was most intense in the 17th century. That certainly was not due to human activity.

And the most serious of almost all the problems is the rising sea level. But there again, we have no evidence that this is due to climate change. A good deal of evidence says it’s not. I mean, we know that that’s been going on for 12,000 years, and there’s very doubtful arguments as to what’s been happening in the last 50 years and (whether) human activities have been important. It’s not clear whether it’s been accelerating or not. But certainly, most of it is not due to human activities. So it would be a shame if we’ve made huge efforts to stop global warming and the sea continued to rise. That would be a tragedy. Sea level is a real problem, but we should be attacking it directly and not attacking the wrong problem.”

 

 

Leash
https://twitter.com/i/status/1754050063498682513

 

 

Honeybees

 

 

Belly rubs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1754116371951001767

 

 

 

 

Bucket sheep

 

 

Baby hippo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1754075250361290874

 

 

Doomsday fish

 

 

Fast car

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 11 2023

Jun 112023
 
 June 11, 2023  Posted by at 8:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  51 Responses »


Gustave Caillebotte Rue Mont-Cenis, Montmartre 1880

 

• Rasmussen ‘Out of His Mind’ for Saying NATO Should Send Troops to Ukraine (Sp.)
• Ukrainian Counteroffensive Runs Into Defensive Wall (Scott Ritter)
• How JFK Would Pursue Peace in Ukraine (Jeffrey Sachs)
• US/NATO Ultimate Goal is to Take Over Ukrainian Land, People, Resources (Sp.)
• How Ukraine Has Become A Magnet For Western Neo-Nazis (Trenin)
• Defense Ministry Reveals How Many Russians Volunteered For Army (RT)
• US Can’t Recruit Enough Green Berets – Media (RT)
• Whether Blinken Comes Or Not, The US Has Lessons To Make Up For (Global Times)
• Jack Smith Takes Down Two Trump Lawyers Using Compelled Testimony (CTH)
• Hillary Clinton Trolls Trump Following Federal Indictment (RT)
• Time For House GOP To Drop Everything And Target Merrick Garland (Fed.)
• End of US Dollar Dominance Approaching – Top Russian Banker (RT)
• ‘Establishment’ Asked Facebook To ‘Censor’ Covid Posts – Zuckerberg (RT)
• Japan Orders Investigation Into Covid Jabs As Excess Deaths Skyrocket (TPV)

 

 

The real story of Ted Kaczynski is that Harvard forced him at 16 to be part of the CIA’s psychological control study known as MKULTRA, turning him from math prodigy with a 167 IQ into the Unabomber.

 

 

Seymour Hersh: Russia is a big country with a lot more resources. She cannot lose the war. She just can’t lose. It will not happen. This is a physical impossibility. The fact is that the border countries wanted Zelensky to make peace, cease fire, and return people. China is ready to invest heavily in recovery. And China is likely to benefit from it. It was one of the conditions, I believe it was one of the discussions that were made between Xi and Putin when they had their summit meeting in April. This is not a public statement. I was told about this by people who are in the subject, that they were discussing restoration. So I don’t know why Zelensky is slowing down. He cannot win the war. And so he is being pressured to end the war. It’s just amazing that they don’t write about it because it’s a story that goes against the rhetoric. They don’t write about it here, they write about it in Europe and the world, but they don’t write about it here, because it contradicts political rhetoric, including rhetoric against Putin.

 

 

 

 

Chaffetz

 

 

 

 

Kari Lake
https://twitter.com/i/status/1667384783792381952

 

 

Solomon

 

 

The Crown Prince claimed “he will not deal with the U.S. administration or their inept president anymore,” a document says, promising “major economic consequences for Washington.” Last fall, Joe Biden’s childish bravado and big mouth vowed to impose “consequences” on Saudi Arabia for its decision to slash oil production amid soaring U.S. gasoline prices. He had also blamed the Crown Prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and said he should be punished.

In public, the Saudi government has been diplomatic but in private, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman refused to shake hands with Biden, settling for a ‘fist bump’. He laughs at Joe Biden and has threatened to fundamentally alter the decades-old U.S.-Saudi relationship and impose significant economic costs on the U.S. especially if their inane president calls for retaliation against newly announced Saudi and Russian oil cuts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Poland especially, has designs on the western part of Ukraine. I don’t think their intention would be to defend Ukraine, I think it is to take it apart.”

“I think it’s desperation on the part of Europe generally. I think it represents a desperation that Ukraine is not winning..”

• Rasmussen ‘Out of His Mind’ for Saying NATO Should Send Troops to Ukraine (Sp.)

If Poland or other Eastern European states were to try and send troops into Ukraine, it would make widening the war almost inevitable, including into their own countries, a former Pentagon analyst told Sputnik. Fortunately, few in Brussels are likely to take the “insane” advice of the former NATO chief that suggested it. On Wednesday, former NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen told reporters that several Eastern European members of the alliance were prepared to send troops into Ukraine to support the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if Washington refuses to give Kiev certain security guarantees at the forthcoming summit in Vilnius next month. “If NATO cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action,” Rasmussen said.

“We know that Poland is very engaged in providing concrete assistance to Ukraine. And I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that Poland would engage even stronger in this context on a national basis and be followed by the Baltic states, maybe including the possibility of troops on the ground … I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a ‘coalition of the willing’ if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius.” Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik on Thursday that “for Rasmussen to make such irresponsible comments either tells me he had a bad day or he’s just out of his mind.” “As a practical matter, it will not be done. I think he’s out of his mind. And I think to try and engage and involve Europe further into that conflict is insanity.”

The Brussels-based alliance operates off a principle of collective self-defense, meaning an attack on one member state is interpreted as an attack on all 31 member states. It’s unclear if NATO would attempt to trigger the rule, known as “if a member’s troops come under fire while operating in another non-member country’s territory. Ukraine has long sought membership in the alliance, but so far been rebuffed due to ongoing problems with corruption and its unresolved territorial disputes with the Russian Federation. “What it seems to represent, I think, is that the eastern part of Europe is basically trying to take over NATO in terms of direction and influence. And also, Poland especially, has designs on the western part of Ukraine. I don’t think their intention would be to defend Ukraine, I think it is to take it apart.”

[..] Maloof said Rasmussen, who previously served as NATO’s secretary general from 2009 to 2014 and was also the Prime Minister of Denmark, “should know better, frankly,” than to make such a comment. “I think it’s desperation on the part of Europe generally. I think it represents a desperation that Ukraine is not winning. And I think that’s what it basically shows. And so they’re trying to look for all avenues to try and help Ukraine. Their stockpiles of spare weapons are depleting very, very quickly. So are ours,” Maloof said.

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“As the world comes to grips with the imagery of destroyed US-manufactured M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned and burning on the Ukrainian steppe, the harsh truth regarding the futility of its larger designs—the strategic defeat of Russia—is starting to sink in.”

• Ukrainian Counteroffensive Runs Into Defensive Wall (Scott Ritter)

Over the course of the past few days, Ukraine has thrown two of its best-trained, best-equipped mechanized brigades into offensive operations against entrenched Russian defenders in the Zaporozhye sector of the front lines. These two brigades had been hand-picked for this job, having been equipped with modern Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, supported by Western-supplied artillery, and using NATO-specific tactics shaped by NATO-provided intelligence and NATO operational planning. In short, these two brigades represented a top-level NATO-level capability, the epitome of the nexus between Ukraine and the Collective West in their ongoing war to destroy Russia. They failed. As the world comes to grips with the imagery of destroyed US-manufactured M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned and burning on the Ukrainian steppe, the harsh truth regarding the futility of its larger designs—the strategic defeat of Russia—is starting to sink in.


The reality, however, is that Ukraine was never going to achieve its stated objective of punching through the Russian defenses to sever the land bridge connecting Crimea with Russia proper. This was pie-in-the-sky thinking promulgated by Ukraine’s Western supporters to motivate the Ukrainians into committing the equivalent of mass suicide to inflict similarly prohibitive casualties among the Russian defenders. The Western hope was that Russia would become demoralized by these casualties and accept a negotiated end to the conflict on terms acceptable to both Ukraine and its Western allies. So far, Ukraine and its Western allies have failed. The genesis of this failure can be traced to two things. First, the low-opinion Ukraine and their NATO allies had regarding the combat capabilities of the Russian army, and in particular those forces deployed in the Zaporozhye region, and second, the unrealistic expectations assigned to NATO training and equipment that had been provided to the Ukrainian forces assigned the task of breaking through the Russian defenses.

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“that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man.”

• How JFK Would Pursue Peace in Ukraine (Jeffrey Sachs)

President John F. Kennedy was one of the world’s great peacemakers. He led a peaceful solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis and then successfully negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union at the very height of the Cold War. At the time of his assassination, he was taking steps to end US involvement in Vietnam. In his dazzling and unsurpassed Peace Speech, delivered exactly sixty years ago on June 10, 1963, Kennedy laid out his formula for peace with the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s Peace Speech highlights how Joe Biden’s approach to Russia and the Ukraine War needs a dramatic reorientation. Until now, Biden has not followed the precepts that Kennedy recommended to find peace. By heeding Kennedy’s advice, Biden too could become a peacemaker.

A mathematician would call JFK’s speech a “constructive proof” of how to make peace, since the speech itself contributed directly to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed by the US and Soviet Union in July 1963. Upon receipt of the speech, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev told Kennedy’s envoy to Russia, Averell Harriman, that the speech was the greatest by an American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and that he wanted to pursue peace with Kennedy. In the speech, Kennedy describes peace “as the necessary rational end [goal] of rational men.” Yet he acknowledges that peacemaking is not easy: “I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war—and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.”

The deepest key to peace, in Kennedy’s view, is the fact that both sides want peace. It is easy to fall into the trap, warns Kennedy, of blaming a conflict only on the other side. It is easy to fall into the trap of insisting that only the adversary should change their attitudes and behavior. Kennedy is very clear: “We must reexamine our own attitude—as individuals and as a Nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs.” Kennedy attacked the prevailing pessimism at the height of the Cold War that peace with the Soviet Union was impossible, “that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man.”

Crucially, said Kennedy, we must not “see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side.” We must not “see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.” Indeed, said Kennedy, we should “hail the Russian people for their many achievements—in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.” Kennedy warned against putting a nuclear adversary into a corner that could lead the adversary to desperate actions. “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death wish for the world.”

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“There is talk here in Washington that the Ukrainian generals might depose Zelensky and enter into negotiations with Moscow..”

• US/NATO Ultimate Goal is to Take Over Ukrainian Land, People, Resources (Sp.)

Shortly after the fabled Ukrainian counteroffensive finally started, it became increasingly apparent that NATO military equipment and training won’t be enough for the Kiev regime forces to penetrate Russian defensive lines. With the Ukrainian offensive now underway, Kiev so far has virtually nothing to show in the way of gains, whereas images of wrecked Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles used by Ukrainian troops have already started circulating on social media. Even though the United States and its allies have been generously supplying Ukraine with armaments and military vehicles during the ongoing conflict, it appears that Ukrainian forces are “institutionally and operationally unable to successfully absorb the wide and inconsistent variety of equipment and weaponry” while “under fire and duress,” said US Ret.Lt.Col Karen Kwiatkowski.

“This is the fault of the US and NATO which seeks to ride the back of Ukrainian patriotism in order to both confront and harass Russia, with an aim to take over Ukraine’s land, people and resources once there is little Ukraine left – in a kind of mini-Marshall Plan, this time completely and wholly managed and conducted by US and international crony capitalists, like Black Rock,” Kwiatkowsky, a former US Department of Defense analyst, told Sputnik. She suggested that the United States and Britain were likely the ones who actually needed Kiev to launch this counteroffensive and that it would seem “as if Western governments see Ukraine little more than a snuff film, for their entertainment and profit.”

“Clearly, what Ukraine needs is to find a way to get out from under the US political cycle and NATO’s organizational expansion obsession, and make peace,” Kwiatkowsky mused, postulating that such a deal would likely entail the separation of the “Russian side of the former Ukraine” from the “Ukrainian side.” She did point out, however, that so far the US and the UK politicians have been quick to suppress any attempts by the Ukrainian side to “make peaceful signs or noises.” Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former CIA station chief Phillip Giraldi has observed that some Western media outlets have been trying to make it look like the Ukrainian counteroffensive is succeeding and that Kiev regime forces are “overrunning the Russian positions.”

Commenting on this development, Giraldi suggested that politicians in the US, the UK and Germany “need to be able to speak positively about what is occurring” in Ukraine, since the public in their respective countries is starting to turn against the conflict “as it grinds on and on consuming hundreds of billions dollars worth of equipment.” He further suggested that people in the United States, Britain and Germany are none too thrilled about their governments directly backing the regime in Kiev, which he described as “a regime that nearly everyone concedes is hopelessly corrupt.” “There is talk here in Washington that the Ukrainian generals might depose Zelensky and enter into negotiations with Moscow,” Giraldi added.

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No nukes, no NATO, no nazis.

• How Ukraine Has Become A Magnet For Western Neo-Nazis (Trenin)

At the end of April, two French neo-Nazis – Alan Vineron and Guillaume Andreoni – who had joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine as mercenaries, were arrested and convicted in their home country. Two months earlier, one of them had posted photos of three executed Russian prisoners on social media. However, Vineron and Andreoni were detained not because of any war crimes, but for attempting to smuggle weapons and munitions back home, including rifle scopes and magazines for machine guns. After a brief trial, they were sentenced to 15 months in prison each, nine of them to be served conditionally. This incident is only the first sign of things to come. According to French media, about 400 French citizens are taking part in the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Of these, about 100 are directly involved in the fighting, and about 30 are well-known far-right extremists. It’s not just Paris that will soon face the prospect of militant neo-Nazis returning home. Observers note that the number of volunteer foreign fighters in Ukraine has reached thousands. According to the French media outlet Mediapart, France’s General Directorate for Internal Security had its eye on the suspects long before the incident. Despite this, they were detained only thanks to a random check at customs. Vineron (also known as “Vivi”) is a retired fighter of the elite French Chasseurs Alpins (Alpine Hunters) unit. He was dismissed from the army after his neo-Nazi views came to light in the media. Shortly before returning home, he posted a photo on the “TrackANaziMerc” Telegram channel, showing three Russian soldiers shot in the head.

The image shows that the soldiers were unarmed and killed at close range. After the photos of the execution began circulating online, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced that it would examine the crimes of French mercenaries against Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine. Vineron’s accomplice, known as “Bones” by his military callsign, was also previously linked to a far-right neo-Nazi group which has long-standing ties with Ukrainian extremists. The “Zouaves Paris” group – it ironically derives its name from the Berber tribe Zwawa, which in turn became known as the French army’s first “indigenous” regiment – supported Ukraine and established contact with local fighters from the neo-Nazi Azov regiment. In December 2019, the leader of the far-right group, Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier, traveled to the country to personally meet Azov fighters and visit their training camp.

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To be taken with a grain orr two of salt.

• Defense Ministry Reveals How Many Russians Volunteered For Army (RT)

The Defense Ministry has praised the growing “consolidation” of Russian society, reporting a massive increase in the number of people willing to serve the country by joining both the army ranks and volunteer units. “In just ten days of the current month, 13,644 people have signed up for contract service,” Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov said during a special briefing on Saturday. “This is 2.1 times more than in the same period of May this year, and 3.1 times higher than in April.” Last month, ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s National Security Council, said that some 117,400 people have volunteered to join the army ranks since January.

Russian officials have repeatedly insisted that with a growing number of volunteers there is no need for another partial mobilization. The call-up conducted in Russia last autumn was described as the largest of its kind since 1945, with more than 300,000 people drafted to create some 280 new military units. Pankov also noted a steady stream of those willing to join volunteer units, saying it “indicates the high consolidation of Russian society, the desire of citizens to make a personal contribution to achieving a common victory.” The Defense Ministry is working to grant the volunteer corps the necessary legal status.

The official noted that the servicemen will be guaranteed the same social protections and benefits for them and their families, regardless of whether they decide to join one of over 40 existing volunteer units, or sign a contract with the Defense Ministry directly. In mid-April, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law amended conscription and mobilization rules. The changes allowed for the creation of a unified digital database of citizens subject to military service. The Defense Ministry is now combining existing databases, including tax, election, medical, police and court records, as well as those drawn from employers and universities. It is expected that the register will help track the summonses sent out to eligible conscripts, not just by mail but also electronically.

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Meanwhile, back home… “..seven in ten young Americans are ineligible for military service because of such issues as obesity, drug use and mental illness..”

• US Can’t Recruit Enough Green Berets – Media (RT)

The US Army has reportedly failed to meet its enlistment quotas for special forces, known as the Green Berets, for four of the past five years, as recruiters struggle to find enough applicants who are qualified to join the elite unit. The service recruited an average of 1,011 new Green Beret candidates from 2018 through 2020, falling 34% of its targets for those years, and it only managed to meet its quota in 2021 after the goal was lowered to 1,250 from 1,540, Military.com reported on Thursday. Just 779 new recruits signed contracts in 2022, a 38% shortfall versus the target, and 527 Green Beret candidates have been recruited so far this year, the outlet said, citing internal US Army data. “We have to do a better job at telling our story,” Lieutenant General Jon Braga, head of the US Army Special Operations Command, told Military.com.

The unit’s struggles come amid wider recruiting shortfalls in the US Army and other military branches. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth told Congress last month that enlistments would again fall short this year after missing the target by 15,000 troops, or 25%, in 2022. The US Army Recruiting Command has blamed the shortfalls on a tight labor market and the fact that more than seven in ten young Americans are ineligible for military service because of such issues as obesity, drug use and mental illness. The Green Berets face the additional problem of many recruits being unable to get through the grueling qualification process after enlisting. Those who fail are often assigned to regular infantry units.

In recent years, just 45% to 60% of new recruits have passed the three-week course that’s required before they can begin special forces training, down from an average of 60%-80% a decade ago, Military.com said. Once they advance past the first screening hurdle, candidates go through a series of schools and tests that can take up to two years. Army leaders have considered shortening the training gauntlet by about half to fill vacant positions more quickly, the outlet said. The army has reportedly caused resentment among some Green Berets by making the qualification process easier, allegedly to enable women to pass.

Green Berets are the US military’s lead guerilla warfare forces. They typically work with indigenous militants as force multipliers, such as the operators who collaborated with Northern Alliance fighters in battling the Taliban during the early days of the Afghanistan war. Military.com reported in May that the US Army may shrink its special forces by about 10% this decade, as its training emphasis shifts back toward conventional warfare. “The recruiting data is the first clear indication that the service may be slowly reducing the footprint of special operations.”

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“Before seeing sincerity from the US side, the general sentiment in Chinese society is that it’s necessary to temporarily keep the Americans at arm’s length..”

• Whether Blinken Comes Or Not, The US Has Lessons To Make Up For (Global Times)

After Bloomberg broke the news in the US, several media outlets, including CNN and Reuters, also claimed that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China in the coming weeks based on anonymous leaks from US officials. This does not rule out the possibility that the US State Department is playing usual tricks of manipulating public opinion by leaking information to the media. In response, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on Wednesday “I have nothing to share on that,” neither confirming nor denying the news. However, one can sense the difference in attitudes between China and the US regarding Blinken’s visit to China.

The attitudes of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese netizens were not like this back in January. At that time, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China welcomed Secretary Blinken’s visit and hoped that the US will pursue dialogue and win-win cooperation, not confrontation and zero-sum competition. The peoples of both China and the US, as well as the international community, had certain expectations for Blinken’s visit to China to promote a turnaround in China-US relations. However, in February, the US side overreacted to the “unmanned airship incident” and unilaterally postponed Blinken’s visit to China. This not only ruined a rare opportunity for high-level interaction and communication between China and the US, but also further damaged the mutual trust that has already been at historically low level.

Not long after, the US side once again showed interest and enthusiasm in restoring high-level communication with China. This included calling out to China in various international public occasions and frequently complaining about China’s “ignoring, rejecting, or canceling multiple communication requests” from the US. Coupled with the various actions taken by the US that strongly contrasted with such appealing and aimed at containment and crackdown on China, it gave the impression to the Chinese people that Washington politicians were putting on a show for the international community. We not only will never cooperate with their performance but also need to maintain necessary vigilance against their true intentions behind the show. In this situation, Blinken’s visit to China has deviated from its original purpose of communication.

Before seeing sincerity from the US side, the general sentiment in Chinese society is that it’s necessary to temporarily keep the Americans at arm’s length. We hope that during this period, the US side can regain some calmness and rationality regarding issues related to China. We also hope they can have a deeper understanding of the three principles proposed by the Chinese side for the coexistence of China and the US, which are “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation.”

Read more …

Robert Barnes
@barnes_law Bill Clinton had national security information in his sock drawer. Clinton never formally declassified it. When sued to return it to Archives, a federal court dismissed the case. Why? Because by law the President’s mere act of removing the records made them his personal records.

“The DOJ is no longer legally arguing that Donald Trump held any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ is arguing that President Trump held documents vital to U.S. defense security. It’s a farce but that’s their position.”

• Jack Smith Takes Down Two Trump Lawyers Using Compelled Testimony (CTH)

First, the good news. The judge assigned to the Trump documents case is U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. She is the same judge who handled the lawsuit last year after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Judge Cannon was the judge who appointed the “special master” to review the documents the DOJ was claiming were classified, but Team Trump was contending that definition. Now the bad news. The DOJ is no longer legally arguing that Donald Trump held any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ is arguing that President Trump held documents vital to U.S. defense security. It’s a farce but that’s their position. The classification status of documents is moot, nonexistent, except to create the predicate for the proverbial FBI nose under the tent.


The DOJ-NSD (that’s Lisa Monaco) got a warrant to look for classified documents, but never intended to use classified documents as a case cornerstone because President Trump had full declassification authority. The DOJ got a search warrant by convincing a judge they were looking for something that wasn’t even a violation of law. That’s why the DOJ would not reveal the probable cause affidavit. The search was built upon a fraudulent pretense. “Classified” is a snipe hunt. You will notice Jack Smith never discussed “classified documents” in his remarks, and the issue of classified documents appears nowhere except in the indictment as a purposeful lawfare description of documents. The DOJ is not legally charging anything relating to the classification status of the documents. That’s the Lawfare and media banter to create a talking point. The term “classified” is all over the indictment, but as a lawfare adjective only; it’s like using the word “stash”.

The special counsel legal framework is centered around documents the DOJ define as vital to “the defense security” of the United States. EVERYTHING is predicated on 31 counts of an 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) violation. The DOJ defines what is considered a defense document, and that intentionally has nothing to do with classification. The granular news. You might have heard that two of Trump’s lawyers, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, quit today. The media wants to use their exit as a point to indicate Trump is in legal jeopardy; however, that’s not the case. As soon as Trusty and Rowley saw their forced testimony was used in the indictment, they had no option except to exit the case. Despite the lawyers providing no damaging information against Trump, the DOJ used language in the indictment to turn Trump’s lawyers into material witnesses. Weissmann’s Lawfare tactic create a conflict, forcing the two Trump lawyers to depart.

WASHINGTON DC – Two of Donald Trump’s top lawyers abruptly resigned from his defense team on Friday, just hours after news broke that he and a close aide were indicted on charges related to their handling of classified documents. Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who helmed Trump’s Washington, D.C.-based legal team for months and were seen frequently at the federal courthouse, indicated they would no longer represent Trump in matters being investigated and prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing both the documents matter and efforts by Trump to subvert the 2020 election. The resignations were shortly followed by an announcement from Trump himself confirming that a close aide, Walt Nauta, had also been indicted by federal prosecutors.

Nauta, a Navy veteran, had served as the former president’s personal aide and was a ubiquitous presence during his post White House days. In their place, Trump indicated that Todd Blanche — an attorney he recently retained to help fight unrelated felony charges brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg in April — would lead his legal team, along with a firm to be named later. Trump and his team have liked Blanche, who is expected to play a more elevated, central role. Weissmann, Eisen and Smith are using lawfare in the indictment to put the interests of Trump and his aide Walt Nauta against each other. Obviously, Nauta would not turn on Trump, so the prosecution made Nauta a target for a federal 1001 charge of lying to investigators and will pressure him throughout the case to take a plea in exchange for testimony against Trump. Nauta is the baseline of the “Conspiracy Elements” which require two or more people. Again, pure Lawfare. Obviously, Jim Trusty was unaware last night that his forced testimony would be used in the indictment.

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FBI and DOJ are destroying America. You can’t have different laws for different people.

• Hillary Clinton Trolls Trump Following Federal Indictment (RT)

One of Donald Trump’s fiercest political rivals, Hillary Clinton, took a shot at the former US president on social media on Friday, following his federal indictment for allegedly mishandling classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Hours after Trump revealed that he was to be federally indicted, Clinton posted a link to an online store selling hats bearing the slogan “But Her Emails” – in a mocking reference to her detractors. In 2015, Clinton was investigated for allegedly holding classified information on a private email server at her home. Both the FBI and Justice Department declined to move forward with charges, but the probe generated significant political capital for Trump throughout their fractious 2016 presidential campaigns.

Throughout his own campaign, Trump would frequently encourage his supporters to chant “Lock her up!” in reference to her alleged misdeeds. “Bringing this back in light of recent news,” Clinton wrote to her more than 31 million followers on Twitter. The former US Secretary of State also plugged the “But Her Emails” merchandise last year in reference to a New York Times report that Trump had destroyed documents in a White House toilet. In 2018, a Department of Justice report detailing the investigation into Clinton’s use of private email server said it held “81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails that were classified from confidential to top secret.” Explaining the decision to not charge Clinton, the FBI said in a 2016 report that the probe established that her actions were not “clearly intentional” and that she showed no “disloyalty” to the US.

Furthermore, the FBI noted that Clinton – who participated in the investigation – displayed “no efforts to obstruct justice.” The 37-count indictment against Trump, revealed on Friday, accuses him of storing classified information in unsecured locations such as a ballroom and a shower at his Florida home. He is also accused of lying to investigators. The documents include government secrets related to the US nuclear program and military plans. Trump, who is the Republican frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024, denies any wrongdoing. However, some analysts say that the former US president is facing severe legal jeopardy if the charges in the extensive indictment can be proven. He is due in court in Miami, Florida on Tuesday – the day before his 77th birthday.

Kash Patel

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“The bare minimum Republicans can do now is impeach Merrick Garland for attempting to throw a leading presidential candidate in jail over a records-keeping issue.”

• Time For House GOP To Drop Everything And Target Merrick Garland (Fed.)

All the things that Americans are coping with thanks to Joe Biden’s complete horror of a presidency are important, but if House Republicans don’t drop all of it right now to aggressively target the attorney general, then none of it matters and they should all jump off a cliff. Seriously. Merrick Garland, Biden’s head of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, just chose to seek prison time for a former president, the man right now most likely to face off with the current president in 2024. The magnitude of the situation isn’t dependent on a conviction or acquittal. It rests on whether the indictment is legitimized at all. And by doing nothing, House Republicans will have sent the message that there’s nothing to do but watch — watch as your democracy crumbles to ashes and blows away with their absolute indifference.

In that scenario, nothing separates us from Cuba. Or in terms that Democrats can understand, nothing separates us from RUSSIA, YOU PUTIN SOCK SNIFFERS! If House Republicans play this game of “let’s see what the facts say” and “there will be blowback if we overreach,” then it’s over. When Democrats were in power, they impeached a sitting president twice, sued to secure his personal tax returns, and brought in a slew of witnesses to embarrass him in televised hearings without batting an eye. The bare minimum Republicans can do now is impeach Merrick Garland for attempting to throw a leading presidential candidate in jail over a records-keeping issue.

Yeah, historical government records are important and if Trump had things in his possession that weren’t his, the government was in its right to retrieve them. There’s a legal and lawyerly process for that. But initial news reports indicate that the Justice Department is throwing the book at him over classified documents Trump retained, something his vice president, former President Obama, and Joe Biden himself have done. [..] Nobody needs to see House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Fox News confessing what a scandal it is, or how outraged Americans should be. The Oversight Committee should be dragging in Justice Department officials for hearings, investigating Justice Department communications with the White House, and immediately drafting articles of impeachment for Merrick Garland. Nothing is more important.

Jeanine

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If China lets the yuan float…

“China understands that they will not become world economic power number one if they keep their yuan as a non-convertible currency,..

• End of US Dollar Dominance Approaching – Top Russian Banker (RT)

The hegemony of the US dollar is seriously challenged by the rise of the Chinese yuan and by Washington’s failed attempt to wreck the Russian economy by weaponizing the greenback, Andrey Kostin, head of Russia’s banking major VTB, told Reuters on Friday. The major banking figure said that under the current geopolitical circumstances more and more nations are shifting away from trade settlements in dollar and euro, while China is moving towards removal of strict currency policies. “The long historical era of the dominance of the American dollar is coming to an end,” Kostin said, in an interview with the news agency. “I think that the time has come when China will gradually remove currency restrictions.” According to Kostin, VTB has been discussing using the Chinese national currency in settlements with third countries.


“China understands that they will not become world economic power number one if they keep their yuan as a non-convertible currency,” he explained, adding that it was also dangerous for the Peoples Republic to keep reserves invested in US Treasuries. The US dollar has been enjoying the status of world’s reserve currency for more than a century after it managed to subsume the British pound sterling. Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase analysts said the global economy is showing signs of the emergence de-dollarization, against a background of rising efforts by Asian economies to challenge the American currency’s hegemony. The greenback’s long-standing status as the world’s dominant currency has been steadily eroded in recent years due to mounting concerns over soaring US debt and widely implemented sanctions using the currency as leverage.

Read more …

Right. Not your fault. Someone else.

• ‘Establishment’ Asked Facebook To ‘Censor’ Covid Posts – Zuckerberg (RT)

Facebook was asked by the scientific “establishment” to remove various posts related to Covid-19 which later proved to be “debatable or true,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a podcast interview this week. Speaking to the Russian-American interviewer Lex Fridman in a podcast released on Thursday, Zuckerberg said that policing Facebook’s attempts to remove mistruths is “really tricky.” “Just take some of the stuff around Covid earlier on in the pandemic,” Zuckerberg explained, “Where there were real health implications but there hadn’t been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions.” He continued: “Unfortunately, I think a lot of the establishment on that kind-of waffled on a bunch of facts.”

Zuckerberg said in August 2021, in an interview with CBS during the height of the pandemic, that Facebook takes down content the platform views as “harmful,” as it violates the company’s policies. He also stated that at the time, Facebook removed around 18 million posts that were judged to have spread misinformation about the virus. US president Joe Biden was among the critics of Facebook in the summer of 2021, suggesting that it was a vehicle for the distribution of “bad information” on social media which he said was “killing people.” “My hope is that Facebook, instead of taking it personally that somehow I’m saying Facebook is killing people, that they would do something about the misinformation,” Biden said in July 2021.

Speaking to Fridman this week, though, Zuckerberg said that the “establishment” had encouraged his platform to endorse various information about Covid-19, but also “asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true.” In 2022, Attorneys General in the states of Missouri and Louisiana alleged that Facebook was among several Big Tech companies to have coordinated with US infectious diseases chief Dr Anthony Fauci to “discredit and suppress” online debates concerning whether the Covid-19 virus originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China. In February, the US Department of Energy concluded with “low confidence” that the virus likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China – a finding whose allegation Beijing has called “baseless.”

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“.. the number of new infections or positive cases per 100,000 people is four times higher for people who have been vaccinated twice, compared to unvaccinated people.”

“Excess deaths in Japan soared by a whopping 400% since Pfizer’s third-dose “booster shot” was rolled out last year..”

• Japan Orders Investigation Into Covid Jabs As Excess Deaths Skyrocket (TPV)

In another case of yesterday’s conspiracy theory becoming today’s fact, mainstream media is finally reporting on what we have known all along. Biden, Fauci and Gates have been sharing misinformation with us. There was no “winter of severe illness and death” for the unvaccinated. In reality, this is a pandemic of the vaccinated. Excess deaths in Japan soared by a whopping 400% since Pfizer’s third-dose “booster shot” was rolled out last year, according to new data. “Excess deaths were approximately four times the number of those in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021,” a report in The Exposé states. The statistics have rocked the establishment in Japan. Official investigations are being launched and lawsuits are being readied.

“Today, we filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for cancellation of the administrative action,” announced Dr. Masanori Fukushima during a press conference. Because the Japanese Health Ministry refuses to acknowledge the causal link between vaccines and deaths, Professor Fukushima and a team of researchers said they “had no choice but to dare to take legal action.” Masanori Fukushima is an infectious disease expert and Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University — with over 25 years of oncology experience. He has been hammering at the cracks in the vaccine narrative and publicly condemned Japan’s Ministry of Health late last year. I have checked with a Japanese translator on the accuracy of the following text from the video translation, and he assessed it to be “actually pretty good.”

“Today, it is a matter of fundamental importance for the Japanese government to continuously collect and disclose accurate data,” Professor Fukushima expressed. “However, I have witnessed the recent fraud scandal committed by the Health Ministry.” “I have come to realize that this is a historically serious problem that threatens the very existence of the nation of Japan,” he stressed. “As a medical doctor and a scientist, I had no choice but to dare to take legal action.” Dr. Fukushima continues, explaining the importance of honestly disclosing public health data.

“Needless to say, it is absolutely important to disclose real-world data on the efficacy and safety of the vaccination against the COVID-19 virus. This is because such data is directly linked to people’s healthcare, livelihood, and economy. Therefore, I believe that the Japanese government, that is, the Health Ministry, must disclose the data properly to the public.” Professor Masanori Fukushima then breaks down some startling data. “Take a look at the data for 65-69 and 70-79 age groups,” he implored. “Surprisingly, the number of new infections or positive cases per 100,000 people is four times higher for people who have been vaccinated twice, compared to unvaccinated people.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Nudibranch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1667245300531056656

 

 

First prize

 

 

 

 

Blenny

 

 

Piggy Hoop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1667249315750858764

 

 

1896
https://twitter.com/i/status/1667275122112069636

 

 

Octopus squid

 

 

Brush teeth

 

 

Rubik
https://twitter.com/i/status/1667422968207806464

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 7 2022

Dec 072022
 
 December 7, 2022  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem 1630

 

• Elon Musk Fires Twitter General Counsel James Baker (CTH)
• The EU’s Operation Against Musk (Matthieu Buge)
• Elon Musk Slams Wikipedia Over ‘Left-wing Bias’ (PM)
• Twitter’s “Partner Support Portal” for COVID-19 Related Censorship (AFL)
• Are Ukrainians Russians? (Saker)
• Ukraine Trying To Drag US Into War – ex-CIA Officer (RT)
• A Negotiated End to Fighting in Ukraine (Jeffrey Sachs)
• Mosscow Accuses Ukraine Of ‘Nuclear Terrorism’ (RT)
• Hungary Raises Alarm Over ‘Critical’ Situation With Fuel Supply (RT)
• World Will Still Need Russian Oil – Official (RT)
• Private Spying Firm Targets Global Population With Illegal Spyware (GZ)
• FTX Crypto Fraudsters Targeted Poor Black Neighborhoods (Shellenberger)
• Mask Mandate in Schools Based on Politics Not Evidence (DS)
• Soros Bankrolls 253 Groups to Influence Global Media (NB)

 

 

 

 

Comer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1599961932424835072

 

 


Bob Mankoff, New Yorker, 1981.

 

 

Ron Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


FBI agent Elvis Chan, at the San Francisco field office

 

 

 

 

Baker was scrubbing the Twitter Files before Taibbi and Bari Weiss ever saw them. That’s why the FBI is not mentioned in them.

“Twitter’s former top attorney James Baker was formerly an FBI attorney who passed on fake dirt from the Hillary campaign’s operatives in 2016, alleging a secret online portal from Russia’s Alfa Bank to Trump. Now attempted to shape the “Twitter Files.”

• Elon Musk Fires Twitter General Counsel James Baker (CTH)

Yesterday, we speculated publicly the first set of “Twitter Files” released was heavily pre-filtered by internal stakeholders connected to DHS who hold a vested interest in controlling any evidence of Twitter’s former political activity. Knowing there are multiple executives remaining within the company who previously aligned with the intents of government, specifically DHS officials, to control the platform, the prediction was not a stretch. Indeed, it just made common sense. Former FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker, a man of notoriously corrupt disposition, was one of those former government officials who started working for Twitter as general counsel. James Baker (pictured below left) working as a government mechanism for filtration of damaging information was not a leap. Again, just common sense.

Today, as an outcome of internal discoveries that indeed Jim Baker did prefilter internal documents in order to mitigate sunlight and exposure [outline here], Twitter CEO Elon Musk fired legal counsel James Baker. Mr Musk said through his Twitter account, “In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today.” Mr. Musk followed up a question about James Baker being asked to explain himself by saying, “His explanation was …unconvincing.” Matt Taibbi provides the context: ” On Friday, the first installment of the Twitter files was published here. We expected to publish more over the weekend. Many wondered why there was a delay. We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of “Twitter Files” – without knowledge of new management.

The process for producing the “Twitter Files” involved delivery to two journalists (Bari Weiss and me) via a lawyer close to new management. However, after the initial batch, things became complicated. Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @Bari Weiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was someone named Jim. When she called to ask “Jim’s” last name, the answer came back: “Jim Baker.” “My jaw hit the floor,” says Weiss. The first batch of files both reporters received was marked, “Spectra Baker Emails.” Baker is a controversial figure. He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess. He resigned in 2018 after an investigation into leaks to the press.

The news that Baker was reviewing the “Twitter files” surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to “exit” Baker Tuesday. Big Picture: The Twitter Files are a threat vector to a bigger story. The DHS, DOJ, FBI and ODNI U.S. government elements who operated with control over the social media platform did so as an outcome of the larger surveillance state. That surveillance state was deployed against Donald Trump in 2016 and everything as an outcome of that failed effort, and the ongoing coverup effort, is what surrounds the current DOJ effort to attack and remove the threat Donald Trump represents.

Fitton Musk

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“Now, they have to limit freedom of speech in order to protect freedom of speech – a logic that can, understandably, leave many people speechless.”

• The EU’s Operation Against Musk (Matthieu Buge)

After Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and the recent reactions of Brussels’ bureaucrats, it has become clear how far the EU is willing to go in order to preserve its own bubble of political agenda. Just as one needs a special dictionary in order to understand Kant’s work and his own understanding of certain terms and concepts, more and more, one needs a special dictionary to understand the language of the EU. And the first entry to look up is ‘F – Freedom’. Its synonym, ‘liberty’, is the first word in France’s motto. And with the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk and the wish of the billionaire to restore total freedom of speech on the platform, we have a new opportunity to try to decrypt it.

Commenting on the French-US partnership during his speech at the White House on December 1, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Our two nations are sisters in their fight for freedom.” Words that are quite consistent with the EU’s suddenly emerging rhetoric concerning the freedom of the Chinese people facing the zero-Covid policy of the Chinese Communist Party, the freedom of the Uyghurs in the west of China, the freedom of Russians opposing the Kremlin, the freedom of Iranian women to be like Western women… We could go on forever with this list, because it is constantly changing, adapting itself to the context of geopolitics. As a concept, freedom of speech is really an illusion, as it is ruled, like everything else in the world, by balances of power. The EU proved this hard-to-admit fact to be true when it quickly banned RT and Sputnik after the beginning of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

And there is no doubt that this threadbare concept has been used in geopolitics for ages, establishing amusing if not pathetic double standards. But double standards are not really the issue here. What is at stake is pure logic. Thierry Breton, the commissioner for internal market of the EU, talked to Elon Musk in order to make Brussels’ point clear. And then said: “I welcome Elon Musk’s statements of intent to get Twitter 2.0 ready for the DSA [Digital Services Act]. I am pleased to hear that he has read it carefully and considers it as a sensible approach to implement on a worldwide basis. But let’s also be clear that there is still huge work ahead, as Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation, and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising.”

Breton should hand every citizen of EU member states some instructions, or a guidebook, to navigate the EU’s logic here. “To reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech” is like saying “Let’s have lunch together; you’re free to order whatever I tell you to eat.” These unelected bureaucrats threatened to ban Musk’s newly acquired company in the EU if he refused to comply with their rules, and the mainstream media has found a new way to wage war against those who don’t agree with all their narratives and restrictions: The use of the word ‘absolutist’. While Musk himself wears the label of ‘free speech absolutist’, pundits are using it as a way to pillory those they can’t dismiss as ‘conspiracy theorists’. In this context, ‘absolutist’ rhymes with ‘terrorist’, ‘extremist’, or whatever you can imagine could be a threat.

Famed Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson has repeatedly argued that free speech implies that one should be challenged and even offended, that it is a condition of dialectics and progress. This is pure common sense. No more in Europe. During the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, in order to promote their quarantine politics, some European governments said it was necessary to “limit freedoms in order to protect freedom.” Now, they have to limit freedom of speech in order to protect freedom of speech – a logic that can, understandably, leave many people speechless.

Kash
https://twitter.com/i/status/1600344422314430464

Read more …

“If only one version of the facts is allowed then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power. And they do that.”

• Elon Musk Slams Wikipedia Over ‘Left-wing Bias’ (PM)

Twitter owner Elon Musk said that Wikipedia has a “non-trivial left-wing bias” after the encyclopedia site marked the article for the “Twitter Files” for deletion. Editors for the site wrote that the article is a “nothing event about another nothing event.” “There’s not really anything here. Even as a stub it suffers from being unsourced in some places and poorly sourced in others, suggesting a lack of notability,” wrote an editor. “It also doesn’t have a clearly defined topic. Is this about an investigation, or is this about a Substack article?” They continue: “While the title suggests the former and the lede suggests the latter, the content of the article is actually about neither. There is no investigation, and the article lacks any notable information about what the self-published article had to offer.”

Musk noted in his tweet that Wikipedia requires the citation of biased “MSM sources” to “confirm” claims. This is not the first time that Wikipedia has apparently worked to protect the Biden regime. This past summer, Wikipedia changed the definition of “recession” on their site to fit the definition given by the Biden White House. Wikipedia then locked the page, preventing people from updating the website. The White House redefined the definition of “Recession” ahead of the summer economic report, which showed that the US had suffered from two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. This was the standard definition, but the White House declared that the definition should be tied more closely to unemployment numbers.

On the Wiki page that provides the definition of a “recession,” a message pops up when an attempt is made to edit the information, reading: “This page is protected to prevent vandalism.” Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has been vocal in criticizing his creation, saying that it is run by left-leaning editors and that the site is no longer trustworthy. Sanger said that he believes the site is run by teams of Democratic-leaning editors, and that the site lost its neutral nature in 2009. He named topics such as Covid and Hunter Biden as examples of Wikipedia’s bias. “There are a lot of people who would be highly motivated to go in and make the article more politically neutral but they’re not allowed to,” Sanger said. He added, “If only one version of the facts is allowed then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power. And they do that.”

Notorious right wingers Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald

Read more …

Not just Twitter, all social media.

• Twitter’s “Partner Support Portal” for COVID-19 Related Censorship (AFL)

Today, America First Legal (AFL) released the fourth set of shocking documents obtained from litigation against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealing further concrete evidence of collusion between the CDC and social media companies to censor free speech and silence the public square under the government’s label of “misinformation.” This nearly 600-page release of documents contains new appalling information. Among these include the fact that Twitter ran a “Partner Support Portal” for government employees and other “stakeholders” to submit posts that it would remove or flag as “misinformation” on its platform. Documents obtained by AFL show Twitter enrolling one government employee, through their personal Twitter account, into this Portal. We know from other publicly related documents, that Facebook has copied this approach for election-related censorship.


This production also reveals that the U.S. government was actively working to “socially inoculate”–or brainwashing–the public against anything that threatened its narrative. It did so by using aligned Big Tech corporations to monitor and manipulate users for the purposes of censoring unapproved information and pushing government propaganda. For example, Facebook sent written materials to the CDC in which it bragged about censoring more than sixteen million “pieces of content” containing opinions or information the U.S. government wanted suppressed. Finally, the documents reveal the CDC was “collaborating with UNICEF, WHO and IFCN member and leading civil society organization Mafindo” to mitigate “disinformation.” Mafindo is a Facebook third-party fact-checking partner based in Indonesia that is funded by Google.

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The Saker’s deep dive into a complex issue.

• Are Ukrainians Russians? (Saker)

Seems like a simple question, but in reality it is immensely complex. I will try to outline a few of the issues, assumptions and implications this question involves. Well, for starters, we might want to ask “what is a Ukrainian?” After all, no such nation or country can be found in history books. But we should not stop here, and we also need to ask “what is a Russian?”. Yes, there was a Russian nation and a Russian country recorded in history books, but does that really help us? French history books used to begin with the sentence “our ancestors the Gauls” which even kids on the French colonies had to learn. Some ridiculed the fact that sub-Saharan Africans or the children of Guadeloupe had to learn that and that was self-evidently ridiculous. But what about metropolis French, those who lived in France proper?

Where their ancestors really Gauls and, if so, how much continuity, if any, is there between Vercingetorix and Macron or the people from ancient Gallic tribes to the modern French? What we often overlook is that nationality is a very modern concept born out of the post 1789 ideology of nationalism. In the more distant past, people built their identity around 1) their place of birth/residence 2) their religion and 3) their ruler. Keeping all that in mind, let’s begin by asking the question “what is a Russian?”. But before we go there, I need to mention another pesky issue: the English word “Russian” can mean one of two things: a member of the Russian ethnic/cultural group, in which case the Russian term is roosskii or a citizen of the Russian Federation, in which case the Russian term would be rossiianin.

For the time being, let’s ignore the second meaning and focus on the ethnic/cultural roosski. To try to find a good definition, let’s being by spelling out what a Russian is not. This is not somebody who speaks Russian. There are plenty of folks out there who speak Russian and who are not Russian. This is not somebody born in Russia, because there are plenty of non-Russians born in Russia. How about somebody born from Russian parents? Here we run into a logical problem: if we define as Russian somebody born of Russian parents without defining what Russian means in the first place, this is a completely circular definition. Also, is Shoigu Russian? This father is an ethnic Tuvan. So 50% Russian max? How about Czar Nicholas II? His ancestry was mostly German and Danish. How about Lenin? He had only 1/4 “Russian” blood (whatever that means)

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Philip Giraldi.

• Ukraine Trying To Drag US Into War – ex-CIA Officer (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is looking for ways to get the US and NATO directly involved in the conflict, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi said, pointing to Monday’s drone attack on two airfields inside Russia as an example of such tactics. “This was a clear attempt by Zelensky, in my mind, to escalate the war,” Giraldi told Judge Andrew Napolitano on Monday evening’s episode of the ‘Judging Freedom’ podcast. “He tried to do that with the missile that was misdirected, possibly, and wound up in Poland and killed two people. He even pushed it and said NATO has to intervene now. This could be another attempt to, shall we say, promote an escalation on the part of the Russians that could possibly be construed as a danger to Poland, danger to troops in Poland, that sort of thing. This is the game that’s being played.”

The missile that struck the village of Przewodow last month was quickly identified as Ukrainian, but Zelensky continued to insist otherwise for several days, until both Warsaw and Washington expressed frustration. Napolitano had pointed out that the US currently has around 40,000 troops in Poland. Their presence creates a “high potential for accidents” and misunderstandings, said Giraldi, noting that Russia would know right away if they made a move to cross the border. On Monday morning, two drones attempted to strike the Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan Region and Engels airfield in Saratov Region, more than 500 kilometers from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled territory. Three Russian servicemen were killed and several more injured, but the attack did not disrupt a strategic aviation strike against Ukrainian logistics later in the day, the defense ministry in Moscow said.

“The whole purpose of this is again political,” Giraldi told Napolitano about the attack. “It’s to escalate the process so that Russia – at least in the hopes of Zelensky and his advisers, many of whom are probably American – does something that is really stupid and provocative in return, and this will provoke the NATO-US reaction that Zelensky wants to see. I am convinced that this is what he’s playing at.” The big question, Giraldi added, is whether the US military and the White House knew of the attack in advance, “and if so, did they approve it?” The US insists it is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine, but President Joe Biden has said he would support Kiev with weapons and money for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield.

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Putin in 2008: “..If you push NATO enlargement, we retake Crimea.”

• A Negotiated End to Fighting in Ukraine (Jeffrey Sachs)

From the beginning — and from before the beginning, from 2021, when Putin made clear what the political issues at stake were — but I happen to know this goes back, in many ways, back to 1990, ’91. I was at that point an adviser to the economic team of President Gorbachev, and then, later, President Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Kuchma, so I’ve watched this from the start. There have been a few very important political issues at stake. One is the NATO enlargement. I think it is really the dominant issue, but three others are extremely important. Of course, I should say, equally important is Ukraine’s sovereignty as a sovereign country and in need of security arrangements. But NATO as Ukraine’s security doesn’t work. It’s an explosive brew. So, one needs to find, as President Zelensky himself said earlier this year, before backing off from it, that there needed to be a non-NATO way to secure Ukraine.


And there can be. So, that’s another crucial issue, is Ukraine’s sovereignty and security in a non-NATO manner. The third issue that is very consequential is Crimea. Crimea, the peninsula, people can look on the map, the peninsula in the Black Sea, has been the home to Russia’s naval fleet in the Black Sea, and therefore completely consequential for Russia’s economic and foreign policy and military security since 1783. So, this is, from Russia’s point of view, an absolutely core issue. And incidentally, in 2008, when George W. Bush Jr. was very unwisely pushing NATO enlargement, President Putin said specifically to President Bush in Bucharest at the time of the NATO-Russia meeting, that “If you push NATO enlargement, we retake Crimea.” This was already explicit. And the point is that, for Russia, this is vital.

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It’s up to US/NATO to halt this.

• Mosscow Accuses Ukraine Of ‘Nuclear Terrorism’ (RT)

Ukraine is resorting to dangerous tactics by deliberately targeting the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on Russian territory, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has alleged. Earlier, Moscow said it would not accept any security arrangement that would involve handing the facility over to a third party. Addressing senior military officials on Tuesday, Shoigu accused the Ukrainian forces of firing 33 shells at the nuclear power plant over the past two weeks. The defense minister characterized these actions as nothing short of “nuclear terrorism.” According to Shoigu, Kiev is deliberately seeking to make a nuclear disaster at the site seem likely. “Our units are taking all [necessary] measures to ensure the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant’s safety,” Shoigu said.

Moscow has repeatedly made similar allegations against Kiev, with Ukrainian officials consistently denying they have targeted the power plant, and accusing Russia of the same. On Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA Novosti media outlet that “there can be no talk of any Russian withdrawal or transfer of control over the plant to some third party.” She insisted that the facility is on Russian territory and is fully controlled by the country’s authorities. She went on to say that only Moscow “can ensure the physical and nuclear security” of the plant. Zakharova’s comment came after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said on Friday that any deal for the protection of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant would involve the withdrawal of Russian weaponry from the premises.

Grossi told Italian journalists that he expects such an agreement will be reached “by the end of the year,” adding that Moscow is “not against an agreement and the principle of plant protection.” The largest nuclear power facility in Europe, the Zaporozhye plant was taken over by Russian forces in early March, days after the Kremlin launched its military operation in Ukraine. This autumn, four formerly Ukrainian territories, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, were incorporated into Russia following referendums. In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree proclaiming Russian ownership over the plant.

Read more …

Even though Hungary is already exempted from the price cap.

• Hungary Raises Alarm Over ‘Critical’ Situation With Fuel Supply (RT)

The fuel supply situation in Hungary is “critical,” with people queuing up at filling stations across the country due to a sharp surge in demand, the country’s oil and gas group MOL announced on Tuesday. In an email statement, Gyorgy Bacsa, the company’s managing director, said that “panic-buying has started causing shortages” and that the only solution was to create conditions for increased imports. On Monday, MOL reported a shortage of fuel inventories across its entire network of filling stations after many people began stockpiling over the weekend. The company said that a lack of fuel was caused primarily by insufficient imports and a halt of the country’s major refinery due to maintenance. MOL added that it was trying to deliver more products from its processing plant in Slovakia but had “reached the limits of its logistical capacities.”


Earlier, a non-governmental organization called the ‘Association of Independent Petrol Stations’ reported that MOL had not supplied gasoline or diesel fuel to some petrol stations for the third week straight due to supply problems. On Tuesday, Bacsa confirmed to radio Kossuth that “the total capacity of MOL is not enough to meet the needs of the Hungarian market,” adding that about 30% more fuel needs to be imported. The development comes as the EU has introduced a ban on Russian seaborne crude along with a $60 price cap. Hungary, which is heavily dependent on energy supplies from Russia, has been granted an exemption from the price cap scheme. The country is a vocal opponent of Western sanctions and has repeatedly criticized the EU initiative, saying it’s “high time” Brussels realized that measures such as this “hurt the European economy the most.”

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“Global consumption, economic growth in the world must be provided with energy resources..”

• World Will Still Need Russian Oil – Official (RT)

Russian oil will still be in high demand despite the latest EU sanctions on the country’s exports, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on Tuesday. His statement comes as the EU introduced a ban on Russian seaborne crude along with a $60 price cap. The latter measure has received support from G7 nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) and Australia. According to Novak, this type of interference in market instruments will “certainly affect” the work of Russian companies and sales, but Moscow does not see “any tragedy” in this. “Global consumption, economic growth in the world must be provided with energy resources. There is not much oil in the world, and Russian oil has always been and will be in demand. Yes, supply chains will change,” Novak explained.

By imposing a price cap, Western countries will only trigger further energy inflation due to scarce supply, the minister said, adding that Russia views these types of non-market mechanisms as unacceptable. “This can only lead to a global decline in investment and a future shortage of relevant resources. This, in turn, will cause an even greater increase in prices, which we are seeing, including the gas markets, for example, where there was an artificial decision to limit long-term contracts,” Novak said. The official did not rule out a decline in Russian oil production amid the uncertainty following the sanctions, but said that it would not be big, adding that Russia “is doing everything to ensure that the situation is stable.”

The deputy PM noted that Russian oil and gas condensate production rose 2.2% from January to November in annual terms, to 488 million tons. Condensate output in Russia averaged 10.91 million barrels per day in the reported period, according to Reuters’ calculations.

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Nothing personal. It’s just business.

• Private Spying Firm Targets Global Population With Illegal Spyware (GZ)

Leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal how a smartphone tracking technology tramples over fundamental data protection tenets and international law, while violating the privacy of citizens across the world without their knowledge or consent. The clandestine tool can transform anyone into a potential person of interest to Western intelligence agencies, and thus a target for recruitment, surveillance, harassment, or worse. It is likely most readers will be unfamiliar with Anomaly 6. Its spartan, single-page website is home to the company’s name, a generic email address, and general location – Fairfax, Virginia, not far from CIA headquarters – but nothing about its services, personnel, or otherwise. By carving through layers of “anonymized” data, this little-known company unearths reams of sensitive information about any individual it chooses anywhere on Earth.

Anomaly 6’s activities amount to a globe-spanning criminal dragnet, the reach of which could well extend further than even that of the CIA and NSA. As we shall see, its founders are extremely wary of media attention, not least because they fear the “legal basis” of their operations “is unlikely to stand-up to scrutiny” given past successful court actions against state spying agencies, such as GCHQ and the NSA. The company, which was founded by a pair of US military intelligence veterans, surreptitiously embeds software development kits, or SDKs, in hundreds of popular smartphone and IoT apps, allowing it to track a user’s movements and much more besides. This data is then analyzed and the results passed on to private sector and governmental clients.

One confirmed customer is US Special Operations Command Africa, which paid Anomaly 6 $589,500 in September 2020 for a “Commercial Telemetry Feed”. In April, The Intercept reported on a leaked Anomaly 6 pitch for new business, in which the company claimed to be able to simultaneously monitor roughly three billion smartphone devices in real-time. To demonstrate its invasive prowess, Anomaly 6 followed the movements of hundreds of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency employees at once via their smartphones. The anonymous source of the leaked presentation “expressed grave concern” about the legality of the company disclosing “social posts, usernames, and locations of Americans” to US government agencies.

The Grayzone can reveal that it’s not just US citizens, but the world’s entire population, in the firing line of Anomaly 6’s unblinking eye. And the company is secretly selling its hyper-invasive wares to a number of foreign governments, militaries and security and intelligence services. One of the most unsettling Anomaly 6 files reviewed by The Grayzone is a case study, demonstrating the company’s ability to track the “movements of individuals in completely denied terrain.” The firm identified 100,000 separate smartphone users who traveled to North Korea over a 14-month period, among them US citizens, “to show the value of our data” for both counterintelligence and source development purposes.

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“The whole strategy was overseen by Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, a Stanford Law professor.”

• FTX Crypto Fraudsters Targeted Poor Black Neighborhoods (Shellenberger)

In the spring of 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, made Chicago its U.S. headquarters, drawing the applause of the city’s mayor. “This is a mechanism and a tool to bring traditionally underrepresented and ignored populations into the world of crypto so they can take ownership and control of their own financial destiny,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot at the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the opulent, 9,000 square foot FTX headquarters in May. “I think the sky is the limit.” The reason FTX.US chose Chicago was, in part, to use the city to pilot a cash giveaway program aimed at poor African American residents. FTX was essentially contributing to two ”guaranteed basic income” programs, one run by a nonprofit called Equity And Transformation (EAT), and the other by the city.

Ostensibly a charitable exercise, the program, which FTX also ran in Florida, expanded the market for FTX’s app, and appears to have been a crucial part of a public relations and lobbying effort aimed at winning the support of Democrats for FTX’s agenda to effectively regulate itself. Bankman-Fried was the second largest donor to both President Joe Biden in 2020 and to Democrats in 2022, after George Soros. There is abundant evidence that Bankamn-Fried’s donations bought influence. After Bankman-Fried testified in May to a Congressional committee chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), she blew him a kiss. The episode is a cautionary tale about how powerful financial interests use progressive social justice ideology to advance their business interests at the expense of the communities they claim to be helping.

“We, like most nonprofits, are shocked by this because they presented this ‘effective altruism’ model to everyone and seemed to push for racial equity,” said Richard Wallace, the co-founder and executive director of EAT, one of the cash-giveaway initiatives. The whole strategy was overseen by Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, a Stanford Law professor. I am the first to report that Bankman had been working for FTX from the very beginning. “From the start [of FTX], whenever I was useful, I lent a hand,” said Bankman.

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Teacher’s unions.

• Mask Mandate in Schools Based on Politics Not Evidence (DS)

IIn October of 2022, however, after repeated FOI challenges by our team and after the DfE had claimed that its paper trail could not be disclosed because to do so would constrain future policymaking processes, DfE officials have now finally provided access to some of their paperwork. Despite heavy redactions across the documents revealed by the DfE, the picture that emerges, and seemingly now confirmed by Matt Hancock’s diaries, is both astounding and deeply concerning. The first notable revelation is that the first time an evaluation of the masks in class policy was provided to the Education Minister, at that time Nadhim Zahawi, appears to have been on December 30th 2021. That is seventeen months after schools had first been advised by his department to require children to wear masks in schools. There was no assessment of harms for masks in schools under Gavin Williamson.

The second notable revelation is that more than one third of the DfE’s evaluation document supporting its briefing to the Minister was given over to concerns about the risk of teaching unions encouraging their teachers to walk out of schools on the insidious grounds that schools had become dangerous places to work. Those concerns were given materially greater airtime in that December 2021 briefing document than the few paragraphs devoted to the risks of harm for schoolchildren. It is evident that the adversarial approach of teaching unions had a material influence on the DfE’s advice to the Minister. The evaluation document notes that mandating the wearing of masks in school “could help reduce the risk of some teachers invoking section 44 of the Employment Rights Act” (a statutory provision that allows employees, exceptionally, to decline to work in materially unsafe conditions), a provision the NEU and Unison had apparently flagged to their members in January 2021.

It also cited surveys recording that 71% of Unison members had reported in March 2021 that masks in class were thought to be “an important safety measure”, and 79% of respondents to a private schools survey around the same time had “noted benefits of wearing face coverings in the classroom”. The deeply troubling implication of this limited and largely redacted paper trail is that policymaking within the DfE was led not by a rational evaluation of scientific evidence or after a weighing-up of actual and potential risks and harms for children against known or perceived benefits. Rather, the motivation for the August 2020 policy appears to have been a direct response to union-led pressures, and perhaps also to incitements from some elements of the mainstream media, who seemed intent on shutting down schools in order to ‘protect’ teachers and other adults. Any harms to children appear to have been of subsidiary importance to making adults feel safe.

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He’s 92 and proves addiction to power is absolute.

• Soros Bankrolls 253 Groups to Influence Global Media (NB)

Leftist billionaire George Soros used his charities to build ties with hundreds of media organizations around the world involved in news and activist media. The journalism and activist media groups Soros supports mold public opinion on practically every continent and in many languages. They also insulate him from inquiry because reporters see him as an ally, not a target for investigation. The 92-year-old philanthropist’s multimillion-dollar efforts promoting his bizarre “open society” agenda encompass some of the most radical leftist ideas on abortion, Marxist economics, anti-Americanism, defunding the police, environmental extremism and LGBT fanaticism.


His global media clout is massive. An extensive analysis by MRC Business discovered at least 253 news and activist media organizations across the world financed by Soros’ philanthropic organizations. These groups wield massive power over information in international politics. This report is the first in a three-part series that reveals the extent of the reach Soros wields over international media to influence the world population. Soros once told The New York Times that he was working to “bend” the arc of history “in the right direction.” He means it.

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Lethal vaccination

 

 

 

 

Stossel “Science”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 3 2022

Nov 032022
 
 November 3, 2022  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  86 Responses »


Salvador Dali Self portrait (Figueres) 1921

 

• US Struggling To Trace Arms Given To Ukraine – WaPo (RT)
• Biden’s Foreign Policy Sinking His Party & Ukraine (Jeffrey Sachs)
• The New Cuban Missile Crisis That Isn’t (Dmitri Orlov)
• Whole World Suffers From Western Propaganda – Russia (RT)
• Russia Ready To Provide Grain To Poorest Countries Free Of Charge – Putin (Az.)
• Russia Strips Ukrainian ‘Oligarchs’ Of Crimean Property – Official (RT)
• Kremlin Comments On Putin’s Re-election Plans (RT)
• Germany’s Position In America’s New World Order (Michael Hudson)
• Double Whammy Ahead? Rep. Warns Of Diesel Shortage, Rail Strike Impact (JTN)
• France To Restart Nuclear Reactors – Energy Ministry (RT)
• Investors Reportedly Disgruntled As Facebook Stock Down 70% (JTN)
• Elon Musk To Fire Half Of Twitter On Friday (ZH)
• Writing as Microcosm, Part One: Publish and Perish (Greer)
• Pfizer’s Lack of Transparency, Accountability ‘Creates a New Tyranny’ (CHD)
• Censorship and Defamation- Weapons of Control (Malone)
• Dissecting the Deceptive Plea for COVID-19 Amnesty (A Midwestern Doctor)

 

 

 

 

The White House deleted its preposterous tweet after Twitter commented. They tried to claim a 50-year old law’s provisions were due to Biden’s “leadership” today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EV

 

 

 

 

“..90% of weapons packages reportedly unaccounted for..”

“..into a big black hole..”

• US Struggling To Trace Arms Given To Ukraine – WaPo (RT)

Despite having a team of military overseers in the country, the US has only managed to account for around 10% of the weapons systems sent to Ukraine that require special oversight, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Earlier, Interpol had warned that foreign weapons can end up in the hands of criminals in Europe. Anonymous US officials told the newspaper that they can only hope to achieve a “reasonable” level of compliance with US oversight rules, and will have to be satisfied with “greater than zero” assurances from their Ukrainian colleagues. Some 22,000 US-provided weapons systems – including Stinger and Javelin missiles – need to be tracked once they enter Ukraine, the report stated. However, US inspectors have only managed to perform two in-person checks in recent months, verifying just 10% of this number.

Without these verifications, the US is relying on Ukraine to scan arms packages and send a record of their serial numbers to Washington. For smaller items such as rifles and body armor, a single American official in Poland signs off on all transfers to Ukraine. Larger weapons systems, such as HIMARS rocket artillery platforms and M777 howitzers, are not subject to inspections. The Post’s report came hours after a Pentagon official told reporters that in-person inspections had recently started again for the first time since Russia’s military operation began in February. Throughout the intervening months, US media reports suggested that Washington had no idea where its weapons shipments were actually ending up. One intelligence source told CNN in April that these weapons disappear “into a big black hole” once they enter the country, while CBS News in August quoted a Lithuanian arms supplier as saying that “like 30% of [military aid to Ukraine] reaches its final destination.”

The US has provided $18 billion in military aid to Ukraine since February. Russian President Vladimr Putin has warned that this influx of arms prolongs the conflict while making the US a de-facto participant. Last month, Putin also claimed that “powerful weapons, including portable air defense systems and precision weapons,” are being smuggled out of Ukraine and onto the black market. Up to $1 billion worth of arms are funneled from Ukraine to criminals, terrorists and extremists every month, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated in October. Russia’s concern over the matter is shared by Interpol. In a briefing in June, agency chief Jurgen Stock cautioned that the sheer volume of arms being pumped into Ukraine “will lead to the proliferation of illicit weapons in the post-conflict phase.”

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“..Biden’s dismissal of diplomacy prolongs the destruction of Ukraine and threatens nuclear war..”

• Biden’s Foreign Policy Sinking His Party & Ukraine (Jeffrey Sachs)

President Joe Biden is undermining his party’s congressional prospects through a deeply flawed foreign policy. Biden believes that America’s global reputation is at stake in the Ukraine War and has consistently rejected a diplomatic off-ramp. The Ukraine War, combined with the administration’s disruptions of economic relations with China, is aggravating the stagflation that will likely deliver one or both houses of Congress to the Republicans. Far worse, Biden’s dismissal of diplomacy prolongs the destruction of Ukraine and threatens nuclear war. Biden inherited an economy beset by deep disruptions to global supply chains caused by the pandemic and by former President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policies.

Yet instead of trying to calm the waters and repair the disruptions, Biden escalated the U.S. conflicts with both Russia and China. Biden attacked Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for expressing doubts on another large financial package Ukraine, declaring: “They [House Republicans] said that if they win, they’re not likely to fund — to help — continue to fund Ukraine, the Ukrainian war against the Russians. These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger than Ukraine — it’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO. It’s real, serious, serious consequential outcomes. They have no sense of American foreign policy.” Similarly, when a group of progressive congressional Democrats urged negotiations to end the Ukraine War, they were excoriated by Democrats following the White House line and forced to recant their call for diplomacy.

[..] The last thing the U.S. and Europe need is a long war with Russia. Yet that’s just where Biden’s insistence on NATO enlargement to Ukraine has brought about. The U.S. and Ukraine should accept three absolutely reasonable terms to end the war: Ukraine’s military neutrality; Russia’s de facto hold on Crimea, home to its Black Sea naval fleet since 1783; and a negotiated autonomy for the ethnic-Russian regions, as was called for in the Minsk Agreements but which Ukraine failed to implement. Instead of this kind of sensible outcome, the Biden administration has repeatedly told Ukraine to fight on. It poured cold water on the negotiations in March, when Ukrainians were contemplating a negotiated end to the war but instead walked away from the negotiating table.

Ritter

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“..Russia can reliably destroy the West (which is not nearly as well defended) but will not do so unless the West attacks first..”

• The New Cuban Missile Crisis That Isn’t (Dmitri Orlov)

Unless you spent the last few weeks hiding under a rock, you have probably heard that some sort of new nuclear crisis is underway because of “Putin’s nuclear blackmail” or some such. Some people have suffered nervous exhaustion as a result, neglecting their duties and generally letting themselves go. [..] I am here to tell you that there is nothing going on beyond the usual—the usual Western propaganda fakery, that is. In particular, this has nothing to do with anything Putin or with anything nuclear. Instead, this is all part of a desperate attempt to compensate for narrative failure, and a failed attempt at that. The problem for the collective West is simply this: 80% of the world’s population has refused to join it in condemning, sanctioning or otherwise punishing Russia, with some very large countries (China, India) either supportive or neutral on the subject.

Most of the world, including Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, is carefully watching Russia systematically destroy what was by far the largest and most capable NATO-equipped, NATO-commanded army in the world (the Ukrainian army, that is), understanding full well that what is unfolding is Washington’s Waterloo. Some countries (Saudi Arabia, for instance) are so sure of the result that they are already refusing to obey Washington’s dictates. This is a problem, because all the Washingtonians know how to do is impose their will on the world. Treating others as equals or looking for opportunities to negotiate a win-win is simply not part of their core competence—or any of their competence, for that matter. Once defanged, all they know how to do is bark and drool.

To fix this problem, the narrative-mongers in Washington and Brussels have decided to play the nuclear card and accuse Russia of nuclear blackmail. Meanwhile, all that Russia has done is decimate the Ukrainian army several times over, then accept four former Ukrainian regions into the Russian Federation based on highly conclusive local referenda closely watched by a goodly number of international observers, and then announce that it will defend these regions against foreign attack by all means necessary. These, obviously, include nuclear means, since Russia does have them, and would use them in accordance with its nuclear doctrine, which precludes their first use. Meanwhile, the US has no such stipulation in its nuclear doctrine, has actually used nuclear weapons against civilians (in Japan), and has for decades dreamed of developing a nuclear first strike capability that could not be countered.

If any country should be judged to be a nuclear threat, it is the US, not Russia… except, as I will explain, the US is no longer much of a nuclear threat either. Putin barely hinted at this, but a mere hint was enough to utterly infuriate the US national defense establishment, whose worst enemy is reality itself. Putin pointed out that at this point Russia has some weapons in its nuclear deterrent arsenal that are superior to that of the West. These new weapons, of which more later, guarantee that any nuclear attack on Russia would be a suicidal move. That is, the West has no way of reliably destroying Russia (it is too big and its economic core is too independent and too well defended with air and space defense systems) while Russia can reliably destroy the West (which is not nearly as well defended) but will not do so unless the West attacks first.

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“Just as Western weapons are now targeting cities in the Donbass and the liberated territories, Western propaganda is firing ‘information shells’ at its own citizens..”

• Whole World Suffers From Western Propaganda – Russia (RT)

Amid the Ukraine conflict, Western countries are waging an information war not only against Russia but also the entire international community, Vassily Nebenzia, the nation’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said on Tuesday. Speaking at a presentation at the UN of the RT documentary ‘Journalists Under Fire,’ the top diplomat noted that Russia had found itself under massive media pressure after it launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February. Nebenzia noted that Western coverage of the conflict is typified by “a huge number of ‘fakes’ about the activities of the [Russian] military, as well as about the goals, objectives and motives” of its campaign in Ukraine.

“It’s no secret that the West has launched a real information war against us, which affects not only the residents of Russia and Ukraine but also people around the world,” he reiterated. He went on to compare Western media coverage with actual Ukrainian bombings of civilian infrastructure. “Just as Western weapons are now targeting cities in the Donbass and the liberated territories, Western propaganda is firing ‘information shells’ at its own citizens,” he claimed. According to Nebenzia, the media onslaught is harmful to ordinary people, who “are losing touch with reality, become distressed and confused” when being overwhelmed with an endless barrage of falsehoods. They also lose the ability to think critically, he claimed.

After Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine, Western countries unleashed an unprecedented crackdown on Russian media abroad, with the European Union banning RT and Sputnik channels. Moscow has repeatedly criticized the move, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claiming that it has shown the world the true worth of so-called Western values.

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And NATO will tell them they cannot have it.

• Russia Ready To Provide Grain To Poorest Countries Free Of Charge – Putin (Az.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed the country’s readiness to provide a significant grain volume to the poorest countries free of charge in a telephone conversation with President of Indonesia Joko Widodo, the Kremlin’s press service said on Wednesday. “In the context of supporting the global food security, Vladimir Putin stated the fundamental Russian approaches towards implementation of Istanbul package agreements pertaining to Ukrainian grain export from Black Sea ports and unblocking of Russian agricultural produce and fertilizers exports to global markets,” the Kremlin said. Russian President also noted readiness of the country to provide significant grain volumes to the poorest countries free of charge as the humanitarian aid, the Kremlin’s press service added.


“Joko Widodo supported such an approach,” the Kremlin noted. The Russian President also informed his Indonesian counterpart about the situation evolved in consequence of the marine humanitarian corridor use by the Kiev regime for the sabotage action against the infrastructure and ships of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and that the Russian side resumes implementation of the grain deal after the receipt of required guarantees from Ukraine regarding the non-use of the humanitarian route for military purposes.

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“..We cannot allow accomplices of the Ukrainian Nazi regime to earn money on our territory..”

• Russia Strips Ukrainian ‘Oligarchs’ Of Crimean Property – Official (RT)

Russian officials have nationalized more than 130 properties in Crimea that previously belonged to Ukrainian ‘oligarchs’ who have been supporting Kiev in its conflict with Moscow, Vladimir Konstantinov, the head of the republic’s State Council, revealed on Wednesday. He wrote on Telegram that Crimean officials had been thinking about nationalizing “enterprises located on the territory of the peninsula and owned by Ukrainian oligarchs” for a long time. According to Konstantinov, the registry of enterprises subject to nationalization features properties of “foreign citizens and states that have been committing unfriendly actions against Russia” and includes some major plants, such as the cement plant Stroyindustriya in Bakhchisaray and the Zaliv shipyard in Kerch.

“For us, this measure is an act of justice. We cannot allow accomplices of the Ukrainian Nazi regime to earn money on our territory,” Konstantinov stressed. He added that it would be even “fairer”to transfer the property to the “defenders, who risk their lives on the frontline of the special military operation.” Later, in an interview on the Rossiya 24 TV channel, Konstantinov revealed that provisional administrations have been appointed at all the nationalized enterprises. “People who used to work there, keep working, there are no problems,” he reassured. Wednesday’s announcement came two days after the head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, ordered the nationalization of the property of “organizations and individuals associated with the Kiev authorities,” including Stroyindustriya and Zaliv.

He revealed the initial plans to nationalize the property of Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians who supported Kiev back in March, soon after Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine. He said at the time that many Ukrainian officials, including President Vladimir Zelensky, owned property on the peninsula. In October, the republic’s State Council amended the 2014 legislation on property management in Crimea to allow foreign states and citizens’ assets to be nationalized. Meanwhile, Kiev took similar steps in early April: The country’s parliament voted to expand a law which allowed Russian government property to be nationalized by the Ukrainian state. The rule was extended to Russian citizens in Ukraine, those with a “close relation” to Russia, and Ukrainians who publicly supported or ignored Moscow’s ongoing military operation.

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If you see Putin as a ruthless war-mongering dictator, all you see here is raw power. Me, I think he would love to retire to his dacha. But he fears the CIA and/or Russian hardliners would move -back- in. Medvedev could do some of what Putin does, but not all of it. Putin wants Russia safe before he retires.

• Kremlin Comments On Putin’s Re-election Plans (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not made a decision on whether he will run for re-election in 2024 when the country is set to vote for the next head of state, the Kremlin spokesman has said. Dmitry Peskov answered “no” when a reporter asked him about the matter on Wednesday. Putin is currently in his fourth term as president. The national constitution sets a limit of up to two consecutive terms. He held the presidency between 2000 and 2008 and has been in office again since 2012, with Dmitry Medvedev serving a single four-year term in between. The country has changed its constitution on several occasions in its modern history. The original five-year term was reduced to four years in 1993, under president, Boris Yeltsin, but increased to six years in 2008. The first presidential election for the newly increased tenure was held in 2012.


In 2020, Russia held a referendum on the most recent round of constitutional amendments, which included extending term limits. It was approved, opening the way for President Putin to potentially stay in power until 2036. Putin neither confirmed nor denied an ambition to do so. When he was asked about it during the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club in October 2020, shortly after the amendments came into force, he said he was well aware that “this has to end at some point.” “What happens in 2024, or later – that needs to be seen when the time comes,” he added. The amendments, Putin explained, “were not aimed at giving the incumbent head of state the right to be re-elected in 2024” but rather to update the constitution and strengthen national sovereignty.

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“..Germany has been told to cut itself off from Russian gas and de-industrialize…”

How can Germans NOT rise up?

• Germany’s Position In America’s New World Order (Michael Hudson)

Germany has become an economic satellite of America’s New Cold War with Russia, China and the rest of Eurasia. Germany and other NATO countries have been told to impose trade and investment sanctions upon themselves that will outlast today’s proxy war in Ukraine. U.S. President Biden and his State Department spokesmen have explained that Ukraine is just the opening arena in a much broader dynamic that is splitting the world into two opposing sets of economic alliances. This global fracture promises to be a ten- or twenty-year struggle to determine whether the world economy will be a unipolar U.S.-centered dollarized economy, or a multipolar, multi-currency world centered on the Eurasian heartland with mixed public/private economies.

President Biden has characterized this split as being between democracies and autocracies. The terminology is typical Orwellian double-speak. By “democracies” he means the U.S. and allied Western financial oligarchies. Their aim is to shift economic planning out of the hands of elected governments to Wall Street and other financial centers under U.S. control. U.S. diplomats use the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to demand privatization of the world’s infrastructure and dependency on U.S. technology, oil and food exports. By “autocracy,” Biden means countries resisting this financialization and privatization takeover. In practice, U.S. rhettoric means promoting its own economic growth and living standards, keeping finance and banking as public utilities.

What basically is at issue is whether economies will be planned by banking centers to create financial wealth – by privatizing basic infrastructure, public utilities and social services such as health care into monopolies – or by raising living standards and prosperity by keeping banking and money creation, public health, education, transportation and communications in public hands. The country suffering the most “collateral damage” in this global fracture is Germany. As Europe’s most advanced industrial economy, German steel, chemicals, machinery, automotives and other consumer goods are the most highly dependent on imports of Russian gas, oil and metals from aluminum to titanium and palladium. Yet despite two Nord Stream pipelines built to provide Germany with low-priced energy, Germany has been told to cut itself off from Russian gas and de-industrialize.

This means the end of its economic preeminence. The key to GDP growth in Germany, as in other countries, is energy consumption per worker. These anti-Russian sanctions make today’s New Cold War inherently anti-German. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said that Germany should replace low-priced Russian pipeline gas with high-priced U.S. LNG gas. To import this gas, Germany will have to spend over $5 billion quickly to build port capacity to handle LNG tankers. The effect will be to make German industry uncompetitive. Bankruptcies will spread, employment will decline, and Germany’s pro-NATO leaders will impose a chronic depression and falling living standards.

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“We got to remember this is just weeks after President Biden told us that he had this all under control..”

• Double Whammy Ahead? Rep. Warns Of Diesel Shortage, Rail Strike Impact (JTN)

Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil says that the economy could take a dual hit after the election if diesel shortages persist and rail unions strike as promised. In September, rail workers threatened to strike after the election if they could not agree to a new contract with railroad companies, which would result in substantial problems for the U.S. economy and its already challenged supply chain. “It’s incredibly concerning,” Steil said Tuesday on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “We got to remember this is just weeks after President Biden told us that he had this all under control, and the trains would be running on time.

”We’re now learning it’s anything but that. It’s another game where the Biden administration has kicked the can down the road and kicked it past this election.” Biden announced he had struck a tentative deal with the railroad unions that the workers cannot strike until after a so-called cooling-off period in late November, right after the midterm elections. “I think people see through this case where it’s very clear that the deal he struck was political in nature and will likely or possibly crumble following the election,” Steil said. “But this is just one more thing that we all are concerned about. As it relates to the economy, pretty much every light on the switchboard is flashing. We got to be concerned. It’s one of the reasons we need to put a check on this administration.”

Diesel

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France will have enough electricity this winter. How do you think the neighboring Germans will look at that from their dark and cold homes?

• France To Restart Nuclear Reactors – Energy Ministry (RT)

Six of the 12 nuclear reactors in France that were found to have corrosion issues in May have been repaired and will be restarted soon, French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher has revealed. She told France Inter radio on Wednesday that, at the moment, there was “no reason” to believe that energy operator EDF would not be able to meet the schedule for restarting all shutdown reactors before winter. Earlier, media reports stated that EDF had hired about 100 American welders from Westinghouse in order to repair the power units on time. France generates roughly 70% of its electricity from a nuclear fleet of 56 reactors, all operated by EDF. However, many of them have been closed down for maintenance, some due to corrosion-related issues.


Currently, only 31 units are reportedly operating. EDF has pledged to restart all shutdown reactors before winter to avoid power shortages in the country. However, since October 6, there have been strikes among EDF employees involved in repair work at 19 reactors, delaying maintenance by several weeks. Last month, the French national electricity grid operator RTE warned that it would not rule out the risk of blackouts this winter due to prolonged strikes halting the repair. According to RTE, outages could only be avoided if power consumption was reduced by 1% to 5%, while in the event of an extremely cold winter – by 15%. Failure to restart the plants on time could have “heavy consequences” for power supply over the winter period, the operator has warned.

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“..from over $330 per share in January to nearly $90 per share this week. The company’s market cap has also plunged [..] from just over $1 trillion in August of 2021 to under $250 billion in November..”

• Investors Reportedly Disgruntled As Facebook Stock Down 70% (JTN)

Investors in Facebook parent company Meta are reportedly growing dissatisfied with the company’s fixation on the “metaverse” as the corporations’ stock continues to plunge and its market capitalization continues a long slide. The company has seen its stock plummet throughout 2022, shedding more than 70% of its value from the start of the year as it fell from over $330 per share in January to nearly $90 per share this week. The company’s market cap has also plunged from its high last year, dropping from just over $1 trillion in August of 2021 to under $250 billion in November. Investors, meanwhile, are reported to be unhappy with the company’s business direction, specifically founder Mark Zuckerberg’s fixation on the virtual reality “metaverse,” a project that has generated relatively little excitement outside of esoteric tech circles.


Jim Tierney, an investment officer for Meta shareholder AllianceBernstein, told the Financial Times that, had any other company plowed so much money into a strategically dubious project, “you’d have activist investors writing letters, proposing alternative slates of directors, demanding change.” “I think Mark heard crystal clear what investors wanted. He’s made his decision,” Tierney told the publication. David Older, an asset manager at Carmignac, claimed that Zuckerberg has been “tone-deaf to the investment community, doubling down on everything.” “The timeline for the metaverse is very stretched. I don’t think you’re going to know if it is the right move for five or 10 years,” he told FT.

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He gets a lot of heat for not firing the head of censorship, Yoel Roth, @yoyoel.

• Elon Musk To Fire Half Of Twitter On Friday (ZH)

[..] in two days Elon Musk will finally do what he has repeatedly warned he would do: unleash mass layoffs at the company he just acquired. According to Bloomberg, the world’s richest man will eliminate 3,700 jobs at Twitter – roughly half of the company’s entire workforce – in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition; Musk will inform affected staffers Friday, said the Bloomberg sources. Oh, and all those masked snowflakes who previously raged against the previous management’s “draconian” demand to come back to the office, you’re out of luck too: Musk intends to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy asking what few employees remain to report to offices.

Musk and a team of advisers have been weighing a range of scenarios for job cuts and other policy changes at San Francisco-based Twitter, the people said, adding that the terms of the headcount reduction could still change. In one scenario being considered, laid off workers will be offered 60 days’ worth of severance pay, two of the people said. With the “liberal and tolerant” left putting Musk under the financial deplatforming squeeze, as various woke advertisers are pressured by vocal ultra-left radicals to drop Twitter unless the social media platform is fully MSNBC’ed; which will leave advertisers showing their ads to a handful of socialist-preapproved media outlets catering to those whose entire income comes from the government, who pay zero taxes, and can’t really afford to buy anything, Musk is under pressure to find ways to slash costs of a business for which he overpaid.

To be sure, the mass exodus won’t come as a surprise: Twitter employees have been bracing for layoffs ever since Musk took over last Thursday and fired the top executive team, including CEO Parag Agrawal and top censor, Vijaya Gadde. Over the weekend, a few employees with director and vice president jobs were cut, while other leaders were asked to make lists of employees on their teams who can be cut, Bloomberg reported, adding that senior personnel on the product teams were asked to target a 50% reduction in headcount. Engineers and director-level staff from Tesla reviewed the lists.

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A bit idealistic?

• Writing as Microcosm, Part One: Publish and Perish (Greer)

I’m not sure how many of my readers have noticed the massive realignment going on right now at the foundations of the industrial economy. Venture below the towering abstractions of notional wealth that fill business websites, all the way to the base, and you’ll find that the whole gargantuan structure rests on certain relationships between individuals and the economy. Most people in the industrial world participate in economic activities in two ways: selling their time and labor to businesses as employees, and buying goods and services from businesses as consumers. That’s the base from which the whole tottering mess rises.

What we’re seeing now is that a growing number of people have lost interest in continuing to fill those particular roles. Intractable labor shortages are becoming the norm in today’s industrial societies. Part of that is a function of the soaring number of people who are struggling with bad health just now—no, we don’t have to get into why that’s happening—but not all of it. At the same time, the consumer side of the equation is also collapsing, and stores are floundering as inventory builds up and sales slump. Quite a bit of that is a function of the wicked blend of inflation and recession that’s got the global economy in its grip, but again, that’s not all of it.

You can catch a whisper of what else is going on if you listen to the frequent rants heard from the managerial class these days about how young people just don’t want to work any more. Talk to the young people in question and you’ll find that quite a few of them are working very hard on projects of their own. What they’re not willing to do is waste their lives working in abusive and humiliating environments to make someone else rich, in exchange for rock-bottom wages, no prospect for advancement, and no benefits worth mentioning. That their reaction comes as a surprise to anyone is a good measure of just how detached our society’s comfortable classes have become from the reality their preferred policies have created.

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“Pfizer had their most profitable year and they’ve just jacked up the prices of their vaccine by 10,000%..”

“So we’re asking, how much profit do they need before they’ll release those bloody redacted pages?”

• Pfizer’s Lack of Transparency, Accountability ‘Creates a New Tyranny’ (CHD)

Pfizer executive Angela Lukin on Oct. 20 said the drugmaker plans to raise the price of its COVID-19 vaccines by about 400%, to $110 to $130 per dose, after the U.S. government’s purchase program expires — even though new estimates suggest the vaccines can be produced for as little as $1.18 a dose. “Pfizer had their most profitable year and they’ve just jacked up the prices of their vaccine by 10,000%,” Russell Brand said in his latest video. “So we’re asking, how much profit do they need before they’ll release those bloody redacted pages?” The comedian and political commentator was referring to a request by the European Parliament’s COVID-19 committee to see Pfizer’s contract with the EU for its COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer handed over the documents — but with many pages completely redacted.

Not only that, but Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., who was due to testify Oct. 10 before the committee, pulled out of the appointment, effectively refusing to answer any of the committee’s questions. When the committee requested to review Pfizer’s contract with the EU for the COVID-19 vaccine, Bourla’s representative told the committee, “They can’t fully disclose these contracts because they have some ‘commercial secrets’ over there and they have to ‘protect their interests,’” member of the European Parliament (MEP) Cristian Terhes said on Oct. 12. “Now I’m asking you: ‘What about the interests of our people?’” asked Terhes, who is also a human rights activist. Terhes showed page after page of heavy redactions from Pfizer’s contracts that it handed over to the committee.

Brand made fun of Pfizer for bothering to share the heavily redacted documents with the public because they were “black as night” and showed no information. “What’s the point?” Brand asked. “Just say, ‘We’re not going to show you.’ It’ll save your photocopier,” he added. Brand also pointed out that according to a September 2021 report by Investigate Europe, negotiations between the EU and pharmaceutical companies for the COVID-19 vaccine happened behind closed doors. “Why is this stuff all so shady?” Brand asked. “Why is it the contract has to be blacked out? Why are the deals happening in secret? This is supposed to be democracy.”


Check the prices

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Malone addresses the Springer article posted here yesterday: Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy

• Censorship and Defamation- Weapons of Control (Malone)

In a stunning article published in the relatively obscure academic journal “Minerva”, the mainstream academic publisher Springer has allowed truth to be spoken. Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics. Having personally lived through what may be among the most intensive slander, defamation and derision campaigns of the COVIDcrisis, none of what was described in this article surprised me. I think that I can probably guess the names of some of the interviewed physicians and medical scientists discussed in the article, as so many have shared their own experiences with me. But seeing it written out in a dry academic style and published like a case series study of global corporate, organizational and governmental psychopathology and greed is another thing altogether.

I expected the article to bring a tear of relief at being heard and validated, but instead it just left me numb. The publication summarized much of what I have personally experienced (and by way of disclosure of conflict of interest, I was mentioned as an example in the introduction, although I did not participate in the survey). Much but not all. It missed the ubiquitous Wikipedia re-writing of personal history (and in my case, writing me out of the history of nine of my issued US patents). It missed Amazon deleting the very credible and well referenced book on “Prepare and protect from the novel Coronavirus” which Dr. Jill Glasspool-Malone PhD (Biotechnology and Public Policy) had worked so hard to publish in the first week of February 2020 – with the only explanation being that it “violated community standards”.

It missed the concerted effort to deny my contributions as a young man to coming up with the whole idea of using mRNA as a drug or vaccine, and developing the technology to the point where it was proven in a mouse model. It missed the (largely successful) stolen valor campaign to credit two scientists (one a Fauci post doc, the other a Bio-N-Tech VP) who came along almost a decade after my work and sought to take credit for my contributions while writing me out of history. It missed the professional infiltration and disruption campaigns designed to destroy the American trucker protest movement and the medical freedom movements. It missed the YouTube deletions of US Senate testimony convened by a sitting US Senator, Ron Johnson. Etc etc.

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Very well done. His notes are all in pics, so go to the original.

• Dissecting the Deceptive Plea for COVID-19 Amnesty (A Midwestern Doctor)

Recently an article began circulating stating that the pandemic pushers deserved amnesty for their actions over the last two years. This article was repeatedly shared in our community as a way of politely saying “How About No” to the author, and to illustrate that enough consequences from the vaccine are starting to emerge that the government has realized they may need to pivot to a new approach (which suggests additional issues from the vaccines will emerge in the future). From having thought this article over, my best guess is that this article was primarily targeted at assuaging the guilt of the left leaning voters who trusted their leaders on these vaccines and are not the most motivated to vote for them in the midterms (as the polling data presently indicates a landslide for the Republican party).

When I read through this article, I realize the author highlighted a very common problem I observe in human interactions (which I will admit I have also been guilty of). The author is demanding to receive forgiveness for their conduct, but in their apology, is refusing to admit they did anything wrong. In order to accomplish this, they utilized a variety of manipulative rhetorical constructs that are relatively simple and frequently utilized. [..] Thinking about this article more, I believe the fundamental logical error in this article is that leaders should be absolved of their responsibility for making incorrect decisions if there was a degree of uncertainty with the information at hand.

This is not the standard we have held our leaders to, as their job is always to make the best decision they can with the information that is available, and in most eras, if the decision was correct they were praised for their leadership, whereas if the decision was incorrect they were blamed for their mistakes. The “but I couldn’t have known!” excuse has never been deemed an acceptable way for leaders to justify their mistakes. In the past, leaders have successfully navigated much greater degrees of uncertainty. In the case of COVID-19, Ron DeSantis, who had no previous training in public health or medicine, was able to look at the data himself and correct discern what policy needed to be followed.

Although DeSantis deserves praise for his leadership, the fact that he was able to successfully figure this out without a scientific background demonstrates that the degree of “uncertainty” here was clearly manageable. As this post shows, it can credibly be argued much of this article was intentionally deceptive. What I am more surprised by is the degree of a lack of insight the author shows into the mistakes that were made. I should note that this is very common behavior you will observe from those who have been influenced by cults or cult like groups. As one reader remarked, it is astounding how much the quality of journalism has declined over the last few years and that an article of that quality made it to publication.

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Debt Rattle February 3 2022

Feb 032022
 
 February 3, 2022  Posted by at 9:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  65 Responses »


James McNeill Whistler Arrangement in Pink, Red and Purple 1883-4

 

• Deliberate Infections Give Unique Covid Insight (BBC)
• Letter From NHS Clinical Scientist Who is Quitting Over the Covid Vaccines (DS)
• Has The Red Carpet Been Rolled Out For A Mainstream Pivot On Ivermectin? (QTR)
• New Zealand To End Quarantine Stays And Reopen Its Borders (Fox)
• US Truckers Got Booted Off Of Facebook (Kirsch)
• Facebook Stock In Free-fall (RT)
• Ukraine Invasion No Longer ‘Imminent’ – White House (RT)
• Russia Condemns Destructive US Troops Boost In Europe (BBC)
• America’s Putin Psychosis (Ritter)
• Don’t Blame Putin for Europe’s Energy Crisis (FP)
• Why Is Trust In Media Plummeting? Just Look At What’s Happening At CNN (G.)
• World Leaders Support Joe Rogan (RT)
• MPs Push For Julian Assange To Be Granted Political Asylum In France (EN)

 

 

 

 

PCR “We have built this crisis with this new definition of “cases”.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1488981740303572993

 

 

The 10 billion, 90%-efficacy vaccine shots have caused the noticeable trend break downwards.

 

 

Bunch of idiots

 

 

 

 

ADP predicts huge job losses. Watch tomorrow.

Dave Collum: ”The job market is not tight, it’s broken.”

 

 

1/ The fact that Imperial College did such a study tells you they KNEW no-one was going to die. You can’t take that risk, even if they volunteer. 2/ It was an early version of the virus, which a/ no longer exists, and b/ was 10-100x more lethal than Omicron. And they still already knew there would be no deaths.

• Deliberate Infections Give Unique Covid Insight (BBC)

The world’s first Covid “challenge trial” – which deliberately infected people – gives a unique view on the early stages of the disease. The virus was given to 36 young, healthy and unvaccinated volunteers, at the Royal Free hospital, in London. The results show where and when the virus takes hold in the body – and that some resist the infection. Future challenge trials could help find the next generation of Covid vaccines and drugs. They allow scientists to study the earliest stages of an infection, even before symptoms develop. Each of the volunteers, aged 18-30, had an identical dose of Covid – equivalent to the amount in a single droplet propelled out of somebody’s nose during the peak of their Covid infection – squirted up their nose. But only half of them became infected.

And understanding how the others – unvaccinated and without immunity from previous infections – resisted the virus will be the focus of future research. In those that did develop an infection, the virus took off rapidly, the first symptoms and positive test results appearing within just 42 hours. The previous consensus had been it took five days from exposure to the virus to first symptoms. And while the virus takes a foothold in the throat, the greatest amount was found when it moved up to the nose, leading the researchers to stress the importance of facemasks covering both. “It’s a really unique study,” Prof Christopher Chiu, from the Institute of Infection, at Imperial College London, said.

The amount of virus peaked about five days after the infection and remained detectable up to 12 days later. Symptoms were mild but some volunteers had a prolonged loss of their sense of smell. Prof Chiu said: “Lateral flow tests correlate very well with the presence of infectious virus. “Even though in the first day or two they may be less sensitive, if you use them correctly and repeatedly, and act on them if they read positive, this will have a major impact on interrupting viral spread.” The virus used was an early variant taken from a patient at the start of the pandemic. Further studies will explore more recent versions.

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The damage to healthcare will last for a long time.

“.. I know which doctors I will trust when all this is over.”

• Letter From NHS Clinical Scientist Who is Quitting Over the Covid Vaccines (DS)

“[..] a letter from an NHS Clinical Scientist of some 25 years – currently employed at an NHS University Hospital Trust but who has just resigned – to Health Secretary Sajid Javid to tell him why she is quitting over the complicity of the health service in the national scandal that is the Covid vaccine rollout.”

A core principle in healthcare is to ensure that patients are given free access to all information, to enable them to make a proper and informed choice about any treatment. As a scientist, I have been and still am gravely concerned about the Government and NHS misrepresentation of these vaccines as ‘safe and effective’ – a mantra still promoted by our Government and media, despite the overwhelming evidence demonstrating otherwise of the MHRA Yellow Card scheme and worldwide databases for reporting adverse effects. Worryingly, the great majority of GPs have not being raising awareness of this scheme, leading to significant under-reporting and, consequently, under-estimation of the actual situation.

I personally have spoken to people who, after experiencing bad reactions to the first dose, have been encouraged by doctors to continue regardless and take the second, with serious consequences for their health. They had never heard of the MHRA Yellow Card scheme and wouldn’t know how to make a report. Misinformation starts from the seniors: I have been told (in writing) by Human Resources senior staff at my hospital that that vaccines have been “licensed”, genuinely oblivious to the fact that MHRA has granted only emergency approval. I have been appalled by the NHS willingness to trample over the concept of personalised medicine in the promotion of products still in phase three trials. There has been no stratified analysis of the balance of risks and benefits.

No scientific reference to real data from the pandemic statistics nor to those of the adverse effects – deaths and life-limiting injuries – reported globally. No mention of the unavailability of medium and long term safety data, which may not be relevant for the elderly but it certainly is for the young. No information about alternative treatments. This is not the NHS I joined and embraced. Primum non nocere: first, do no harm. Equally important is the right to bodily autonomy, including the right to refuse any treatment or medication. Enshrined in law for the protection of all human beings, this core principle extends to everybody, patients and healthcare staff alike. The Government mandate, offering NHS workers the alternative between taking an experimental product against their best judgement or lose their livelihood, can hardly be portrayed as ‘free choice’.

I hope it is clear that the motivation of NHS staff across all professions in resisting this coercion is founded on ethical grounds. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, clinical scientists – we all feel that our integrity would be compromised, that the fundamental principle of trust, at the core of our unique relationship with the patients we serve, would be irreparably transgressed; and that this erosion of professional ethics would carry the inherent danger of establishing coercion as an acceptable practice in future, with NHS staff imposing procedures on patients against their will – the victim becoming the perpetrator. From a patient prospective, I know which doctors I will trust when all this is over.

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“Duh, of course ivermectin works and we’ve known it all along, it just doesn’t work as well as [insert big pharma drug here]”

• Has The Red Carpet Been Rolled Out For A Mainstream Pivot On Ivermectin? (QTR)

I couldn’t help but think when this Japanese study popped up yesterday that the timing sure would be convenient now for the mainstream media to start a pivot on ivermectin. Now that Moderna has received official FDA approval for its vaccine and Pfizer is happily seeking Emergency Use Authorization to jab kids as young as 6 months – and now that major drug manufacturers have had their antiviral Covid pills approved – maybe it can finally be time to pump the brakes on the ivermectin hysteria and allow the truth and reason to nudge their way in. In other words, the fat pigs are finally finished stuffing their gluttonous faces at the trough of the FDA, stocked with newly-printed U.S. dollars.

Unable to physically consume anymore, and noticing that all but a few molecules of feed are even left, they can now reluctantly relinquish their positions at the front of the line and waddle away, leaving the rest of the animals a chance to squabble over the remains. All of the major pharmaceutical companies (and their lobbyists) finally getting the approvals that they want for all of their Covid drugs may roll out the red carpet for us to finally embrace reality and the truth, which I believe is that ivermectin has efficacy. What we’re seeing now in the media is a massive pivot regarding Covid. With the emergence of omicron and many geographic locations around the world lifting their Covid restrictions – and most notably politicians understanding they can’t win an election by locking us in our home [..] the media pivot on Covid has been pronounced since 2022 began.

And not unlike the pivot we’ve already seen on the lab leak and whether or not vaccines would end the virus, I’m expecting we see a similar pivot on ivermectin. Of course, I could be wrong. I don’t mind being wrong. I exist on the fringe, as my readers know. In the words of Peter Venkman: “If I’m wrong, nothing happens! We go to jail – peacefully, quietly. We’ll enjoy it!” But if I’m not…and the narrative on ivermectin does in fact change to wind up as “Duh, of course ivermectin works and we’ve known it all along, it just doesn’t work as well as [insert big pharma drug here]” everybody responsible for suppressing over the last 2 years needs to be held accountable for what, in my opinion, may wind up amounting to crimes against humanity.

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Pointless and endless.

• New Zealand To End Quarantine Stays And Reopen Its Borders (Fox)

New Zealand’s government on Thursday said it will end its quarantine requirements for incoming travelers and reopen its borders, a change welcomed by thousands of citizens abroad who have endured long waits to return home. Since the start of the pandemic, New Zealand has enacted some of the world’s strictest border controls. Most incoming travelers need to spend 10 days in a quarantine hotel room run by the military, a requirement that has created a bottleneck at the border. The measures were initially credited with saving thousands of lives and allowed New Zealand to eliminate or control several outbreaks of the coronavirus.

But, increasingly, the border controls have been viewed as out-of-step in a world where the virus is becoming endemic, and in a country where the omicron variant is already spreading. The bottleneck forced many New Zealanders abroad to enter a lottery-style system to try and secure a spot in quarantine and passage home. The shortcomings of the system were highlighted over the past week by pregnant New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis, who was stranded in Afghanistan after New Zealand officials initially rejected her application to return home to give birth. After international publicity, officials backed down and offered her a spot in quarantine, which she has accepted.

The border changes mean that vaccinated New Zealanders returning from Australia will no longer need to go into quarantine from the end of this month, and vaccinated New Zealanders returning from the rest of the world can skip quarantine by mid-March. They will still be required to isolate at home. However, most tourists will need to wait until October before they can enter the country without a quarantine stay. And anybody who isn’t vaccinated will still be required to go through quarantine.

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Why does Facebook need to get into this?

• US Truckers Got Booted Off Of Facebook (Kirsch)

I just got off the phone with Brian Brase who is organizing the US truckers. He’ll be on the VSRF call tomorrow (register at vacsafety.org). They got kicked off of Facebook because Facebook said they violated their QAnon policy. I suggested Substack and Brian said, “What’s that?” So I suggested I might be able to help them find a group of people who could run the IT for them to provide the truckers and their supporters a way to communicate. If you have both the time and expertise to do this, please volunteer using this form and we’ll get these guys re-platformed ASAP.

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They lost $200 billion in market cap overnight.

• Facebook Stock In Free-fall (RT)

Shares of Facebook’s parent company Meta went into a nosedive after the markets closed on Wednesday, following an underwhelming quarterly report, the first since CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the name change. The stock stood strong at $323 a share when the markets closed at 4 pm EST, but collapsed to $249 just half an hour later, for a loss of almost 23%. In just the first eleven minutes of after-hours trading, $16 billion in Meta’s market cap had been wiped out. What triggered the sell-off was Meta’s quarterly report showing lower revenue, earnings per share, and the numbers of daily and monthly active users than expected by investors.


Whereas the investors expected around $30.15 billion, Facebook’s figures showed $27-$29 billion, CNBC reported, citing a Refinitiv survey of market analysts. According to the same source, earnings per share came in at $3.67, short of the expected $3.84. The number of daily active users (DAU) stood at 1.93 billion, less than the expected 1.95 billion, while the monthly active users (MAU) also undershot the 2.95 expectation, ending up at 2.91 billion, according to Street Account. This is the first quarterly report since Zuckerberg announced his social media behemoth would be changing its name to Meta, to better represent its focus on the upcoming “metaverse” and encompass the existing Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp brands.

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Awkward walk back.

• Ukraine Invasion No Longer ‘Imminent’ – White House (RT)

The US government is no longer using the word ‘imminent’ in its narrative around the alleged Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, on Wednesday, explaining that it was sending an unintended message. “I used it once. I think others have used that once, and we stopped using it because I think it sent a message that we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew that President Putin had made a decision,” Psaki said at a press briefing. “I would say the vast majority of times I’ve talked about it, I’ve said he could invade ‘at any time,’” she added. Psaki’s remarks come after the US envoy to the UN backtracked from the use of ‘imminent’ in an interview with NPR aired on Tuesday.


“No, I would not say that we are arguing that it’s imminent,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the broadcaster. The official transcript of Psaki’s January 25 briefing says otherwise, however. Asked whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which the US media and intelligence agencies have claimed since late October would happen any day now – was still “imminent,” here’s what Psaki had to say. “When we said it was imminent, it remains imminent,” she told one reporter. “Well, ‘imminent’ has a pretty intense meaning. Doesn’t it?” she said in answer to the very next question. “And it’s still the belief that it’s imminent?” was the followup, to which Psaki replied, “Correct.”

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3,000 troops vs 130,000 Russia?!

• Russia Condemns Destructive US Troops Boost In Europe (BBC)

Russia has condemned a US decision to send extra troops to Europe to support its Nato allies amid continuing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow said it was a “destructive” step which heightened tension and reduced the scope for a political solution. The Pentagon said 2,000 US troops would be sent from North Carolina to Poland and Germany, and a further 1,000 already in Germany would go to Romania. Russia has some 100,000 troops near Ukraine. It denies planning to invade. The tensions come eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region.


Moscow accuses the Ukrainian government of failing to implement the Minsk agreement – an international deal to restore peace to the east, where Russian-backed rebels control swathes of territory and at least 14,000 people have been killed since 2014. Responding to US President Joe Biden’s decision to deploy extra troops to Europe this week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said it was a “destructive” and an “unjustified” step. Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Grushko added that it would “delight” the Ukrainian authorities, who would continue sabotaging the Minsk agreement “with impunity”. The Pentagon earlier said the American troops being deployed would not fight in Ukraine – but would ensure the defence of Washington’s allies. Their deployment is in addition to the 8,500 troops the Pentagon put on alert last month to be ready to deploy to Europe if needed.

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“They said one thing, they did another,” Putin said. “As people say, they screwed us over, well they simply deceived us.”

• America’s Putin Psychosis (Ritter)

The war of words between Russia and the United States over Ukraine escalated further on Tuesday as Russian President Vladimir Putin responded for the first time to the U.S. written reply to Russia’s demands for security guarantees that were expressed in the form of a pair of draft treaties submitted by Moscow to the U.S. and NATO in December. “It is already clear…that the fundamental Russian concerns were ignored. We did not see an adequate consideration of our three key requirements,” Putin said at a press conference that followed his meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Moscow.

Putin said the U.S. had failed to give “adequate consideration of our three key demands regarding NATO expansion, the renunciation of the deployment of strike weapons systems near Russian borders, and the return of the [NATO] bloc’s military infrastructure in Europe to the state of 1997, when the Russia-NATO founding act was signed.” He detailed what he alleged was NATO’s long history of deception, re-emphasizing the 1990 verbal commitment by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not expand “an inch” eastward. “They said one thing, they did another,” Putin said. “As people say, they screwed us over, well they simply deceived us.”

With some 130,000 Russian troops deployed in the western and southern military districts bordering Ukraine, and another 30,000 assembling in neighboring Belarus, U.S. policy makers are scrambling to figure out what Russia’s next move might be, a choice most U.S. policy makers believe boils down to diplomacy or war. Rather than examine the situation from the perspective of Russian national security interests, however, these officials have placed the fate of European peace and security in the hands of a single individual: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

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“European natural gas topped $60 per million Btu, equivalent to an oil price of an astonishing $350 per barrel.”

• Don’t Blame Putin for Europe’s Energy Crisis (FP)

Europe typically depends on Russia for more than one-third of its natural gas use. Although Russia has been sending less to Europe this winter, it is fulfilling its long-term contractual commitments. The difference now is that it has all but cut off the additional supplies it usually sells on the spot market. If Russia were to cut or reduce contracted deliveries to Europe as well—which half a century of energy relations suggests is unlikely—it would be exceedingly difficult and expensive for Europe to replace lost Russian gas flows. Spot prices, already skyrocketing to unprecedented levels, would go even higher as European buyers tried to pull in LNG supplies otherwise headed for Asia, energy-intensive industries would shut down, and even household heating and electricity use would likely need to be rationed to prevent power outages.

But even if Russian gas flows continue uninterrupted, Europe still faces an energy crisis this year and, more importantly, in the years to come. By late summer of 2021, it was already evident that Europe was facing a looming energy crisis with gas storage levels unusually low. As winter set in, prices predictably soared to record levels, reaching such heights late last year that many industrial firms shut down production. In Britain, nearly 30 power utilities went bankrupt. European natural gas topped $60 per million Btu, equivalent to an oil price of an astonishing $350 per barrel. (Brent crude sells for around $90 a barrel, and the comparable U.S. gas price is around $4.) European household energy bills will rise another 50 percent this year, according to Bank of America.

Faced with public backlash and worries about the impact on the macroeconomy, governments with few other options to keep prices in check have resorted to subsidizing energy costs for people feeling the pinch. Denmark has announced it plans to send checks to households using natural gas for heating to offset the rise in prices. Norway, France, and several other European countries have done the same. Energy prices have eased in recent weeks, but only because Europe has been lucky with the weather. Winter temperatures have not been as cold as feared. The same has been true of Asia, allowing Europe to draw some cargoes of LNG that otherwise would have been needed there.

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Is this the end? The MSM start eating each other, like here the Guardian devouring CNN, in the same way that CNN’s Cuomo and Zucker go after each other. Because: they have no viewers left.

CNN calls itself “the iconic network”, Brian Stelter goes after Rogan saying he’s not credible because he doesn’t have a large media corporation like CNN behind him. He does have 25x more viewers though.

NOTE: wonder if the Guardian knows it’s part of “Media” too, and losing trust.

• Why Is Trust In Media Plummeting? Just Look At What’s Happening At CNN (G.)

Media outlets are supposed to report the news not become it. On Wednesday CNN found itself coming afoul of that rule when Jeff Zucker abruptly resigned from his position as network president amid lurid circumstances. In a memo sent to colleagues, Zucker explained he was stepping down after failing to disclose a “consensual relationship” with a close colleague. While Zucker didn’t name the colleague directly, Allison Gollust, CNN’s executive vice-president and chief marketing officer, has confirmed her involvement in a memo to employees. Hang on a minute. Is a powerful man really resigning from a big job because he had a consensual relationship with a colleague? That’s not the usual way of things; many men have been accused of far worse transgressions and still managed to cling to power.

Well here’s some context: Gollust happens to be the former communications director for disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. And Zucker’s relationship with Gollust came up during an internal investigation into former anchor Chris Cuomo, who was fired from CNN in December after using his job to help his brother, Andrew, combat sexual harassment allegations (leading some commentators to dub CNN the “Cuomo Nepotism Network”.) Zucker stood by Chris Cuomo for months when his conflict-of-interest scandal first hit but eventually fired him a few days after the anchor was accused of sexual misconduct by a junior colleague at another network. Like his brother, it seems Chris holds a grudge. Two sources told Politico that it was Cuomo’s legal team, which is still negotiating his exit from the network, who flagged the relationship between Zucker and Gollust.

A reporter from media startup Puck News has also claimed that CNN received a letter from Cuomo’s lawyers asking for all communications between Zucker, Gollust and Cuomo to be preserved. While Zucker may not be having a very good week, Donald Trump (whose views on CNN are common knowledge) is having a ball. “Jeff Zucker, a world-class sleazebag who has headed ratings and real-news-challenged CNN for far too long, has been terminated for numerous reasons, but predominantly because CNN has lost its way with viewers,” Trump wrote in a statement. I hate to say it, but Trump has a point. You don’t have to be a cynic to reckon that CNN’s dismal ratings may factor into Zucker’s sudden departure: CNN had record ratings during the Trump years but has seen viewership plummet recently.

The Cuomo scandal certainly hasn’t helped the network’s credibility: during the early days of the pandemic Chris Cuomo repeatedly interviewed his brother on air and it was largely treated like hilarious banter instead of a clear conflict of interest. And that’s hardly been the only embarrassment the network has suffered: last year Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s chief legal analyst exposed himself on a Zoom call with colleagues. While the New Yorker fired Toobin from his staff writer position, CNN gave him a little tap on the wrist and put him back on the air.

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Optimistic headline.

• World Leaders Support Joe Rogan (RT)

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele both came out in defense of American podcast host Joe Rogan this week after critics, including the White House, encouraged Spotify to censor his show. The campaign – which has attempted to get Rogan’s Spotify show censored after he expressed skepticism over Covid-19 vaccines for young people and hosted several vaccine-skeptic doctors – was bolstered on Tuesday after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said there was “more that can be done” by Spotify to crack down on speech which goes against the national Covid-19 line. Psaki’s comments were condemned by free speech activists in the US, who claimed they were unconstitutional and amounted to the state pressuring a private company to censor dissidents.


The two world leaders also came out in defense of Rogan’s right to free speech. In a statement, Bolsonaro said, “I’m not sure what [Rogan] thinks about me or about my government, but it doesn’t matter.” “If freedom of speech means anything, it means that people should be free to say what they think, no matter if they agree or disagree with us. Stand your ground! Hugs from Brazil.” Bukele – who has been accused of threatening freedom of the press in his county by criticizing ‘fake news’ journalists – used Psaki’s comments to mock critics who claim free speech “is under attack in El Salvador,” and appeared to argue that the White House’s interference in the Rogan matter amounted to a more egregious attack on free speech than anything his administration is accused of doing. Following calls for Rogan to be censored, Spotify announced it would start adding a ‘content advisory’ to shows that discuss the Covid-19 pandemic. The advisories will direct listeners to allegedly ‘trusted sources’ on the coronavirus, including scientists and academics.

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“WikiLeaks was formerly based in France and Assange’s children live in the country, but his lawyers admitted in 2020 that the fact that he is not on French soil would complicate the process.”

• MPs Push For Julian Assange To Be Granted Political Asylum In France (EN)

Four French MPs are pushing for Julian Assange to be offered asylum in France amid the WikiLeaks founder’s ongoing fight against extradition from the UK to the US. Jennifer De Temmerman, Jean Lassalle, Cedric Villani and Francois Ruffin are due to speak at a press conference in Paris on 1 February where they will explain why Assange — currently in prison in the UK — should be given sanctuary in France. Assange’s defence team announced in February 2020 that it would be seeking asylum for him in France, ahead of the hearing in the UK on whether the 50-year-old should be extradited to the US for trial.


Two years on, Assange continues to fight extradition to the US, where would face trial over the release of a trove of classified military documents more than a decade ago. In December 2021, Britain’s High Court overturned a ruling by a lower court that Assange could not be extradited due to concerns over his mental health. In January, Assange won the right to appeal this decision to the UK Supreme Court, further delaying his possible extradition. WikiLeaks was formerly based in France and Assange’s children live in the country, but his lawyers admitted in 2020 that the fact that he is not on French soil would complicate the process.

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Cement use. 3 years vs 100 years.

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 4 2021

Oct 042021
 
 October 4, 2021  Posted by at 7:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Salvador Dali City of drawers – The Anthropomorphic Cabinet 1936

 

• Vaccine Effectiveness Hits as Low as Minus-66% in the Over 40s (DS)
• Increases In Covid-19 Are Unrelated To Levels Of Vaccination (Springer)
• Merck’s New Drug – A Wonder Or Incipient Slaughter?
• Predominance of Antibody-Resistant Covid Variants In Breakthrough Cases (Mxiv)
• Antihistamines And Azithromycin As A Treatment For Covid-19 (PMC)
• ‘Grinch’ Fauci Mulls Canceling Christmas Due To Covid (RT)
• Israel Tightens Covid ‘Green Pass’ Rules, Sparking Protest (AP)
• The Israeli Face Of Pain After Pfizer Shots (Farber)
• How Democray Ends (Prasad)
• Staff Shortages Spreading To All Corners Of UK Business (G.)
• Whistleblower Blasts Facebook For Prioritizing Profits Over ‘Democracy’ (RT)
• Electricity Bills In Italy Rise By Almost 30 Percent From Friday (ZH)
• Pandora Papers (RT)

 

 

October 15

 

 

Nails It
https://twitter.com/i/status/1444683972789817348

 

 

The minus number is a nice detail.

• Vaccine Effectiveness Hits as Low as Minus-66% in the Over 40s (DS)

Following last week’s ‘fact check‘ from Full Fatuous – ostensibly of my piece but with some words of admonition for PHE as well, particularly over the accuracy of the population data – a new note appeared in the report: “Interpretation of the case rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated population is particularly susceptible to changes in denominators and should be interpreted with extra caution.” So there you go. All estimates in this post are based on the data PHE uses and are valid insofar as that data is accurate. As before, the data is just for a four-week period, which, given that the early part of the Delta surge was dominated by the unvaccinated and the latter part has seen infections rise in the vaccinated, seems to me a mistake. A fairer view would cover the whole Delta surge (as with the estimates I make from the data in the Technical Briefings), but in any case the report gives a snapshot of current relative infection rates.


As Full Fatuous pointed out, PHE don’t recommend using this data to estimate vaccine effectiveness, saying it’s “not the most appropriate method” because it’s unadjusted for risk factors (and, inevitably, they don’t provide the data you’d need to adjust it). However, even if not recommended by PHE, it is certainly a valid method of calculating vaccine effectiveness, which is just a figure which states the relative risk reduction in the vaccinated group, as long as you bear in mind its limitations. All vaccine effectiveness estimates have limitations, and while adjusting for confounding factors is in principle important, it is helpful only if done well, and many studies do not do it well. Unadjusted estimates from raw data are a necessary starting point.

Perhaps the key confounder for the estimates of vaccine effectiveness against infection given here is whether people have been previously infected, with a common assumption being that a higher proportion of the unvaccinated will be previously infected, due to it being a potential factor in people’s decision not to be vaccinated. This may well artificially lower the vaccine effectiveness estimates, but since no one has yet produced data showing how antibodies-from-infection split between vaccinated and unvaccinated it is hard to know how far this is the case. Unvaccinated here means actually unvaccinated, not partially vaccinated or post-jab. Hospitalisation means “cases presenting to emergency care (within 28 days of a positive specimen) resulting in an overnight inpatient admission”.


As England’s drawn-out Delta outbreak drags on, the infection rates in the vaccinated continue to outpace those in the unvaccinated, reducing (unadjusted) vaccine effectiveness further. For the 60s age group, infection rates are 63% higher in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated, up from 53% last week, giving an (unadjusted) vaccine effectiveness of minus-63%. But that has been topped this week by the 40s age group, the vaccinated among whom now have an infection rate no less than 66% higher than the unvaccinated, up from 46% in last week’s report and 27% in the report for the month ending September 5th. Vaccine effectiveness has been heading downward in the 30s age group as well, now just 8%, though interestingly it has actually been increasing in the under 18s.

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“..Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.”

But still you say they are unrelated?

• Increases In Covid-19 Are Unrelated To Levels Of Vaccination (Springer)

At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days. In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases is further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.

Across the US counties too, the median new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the last 7 days is largely similar across the categories of percent population fully vaccinated (Fig. 2). Notably there is also substantial county variation in new COVID-19 cases within categories of percentage population fully vaccinated. There also appears to be no significant signaling of COVID-19 cases decreasing with higher percentages of population fully vaccinated. Of the top 5 counties that have the highest percentage of population fully vaccinated (99.9–84.3%), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies 4 of them as “High” Transmission counties. Chattahoochee (Georgia), McKinley (New Mexico), and Arecibo (Puerto Rico) counties have above 90% of their population fully vaccinated with all three being classified as “High” transmission.

Conversely, of the 57 counties that have been classified as “low” transmission counties by the CDC, 26.3% (15) have percentage of population fully vaccinated below 20%. Since full immunity from the vaccine is believed to take about 2 weeks after the second dose, we conducted sensitivity analyses by using a 1-month lag on the percentage population fully vaccinated for countries and US counties. The above findings of no discernable association between COVID-19 cases and levels of fully vaccinated was also observed when we considered a 1-month lag on the levels of fully vaccinated. We should note that the COVID-19 case data is of confirmed cases, which is a function of both supply (e.g., variation in testing capacities or reporting practices) and demand-side (e.g., variation in people’s decision on when to get tested) factors.

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“The problem with developing drugs like this is that if they get into other cells, not virally-infected ones, they can also cause those errors in the DNA replication and thus terminate the cell’s propagation and cellular line.”

• Merck’s New Drug – A Wonder Or Incipient Slaughter?

This drug is an analog (in other words, “looks the same to a living cell”) of cytosine. That’s one of four chemical “bases” that make up DNA. What Merck has done is “damage” it in a way that a cell still thinks its cytosine. Thus when it gets taken up in the synthesis of RNA it produces an error; the replication process doesn’t know how to deal with that and, after a few of those accumulate the process fails and thus the virus (in this case Covid-19) cannot reproduce in the cell. That’s how it works, basically. I was incorrect, by the way, in calling this a potential protease inhibitor, much like those used for HIV. Pfizer has one of those in test for Covid-19 as well. This is not — it is a nucleoside (the four primary chemical bases that make up DNA) analog that has been deliberately damaged so as to screw up the replication machinery.

There are a few of these used today in humans, with most targeting HIV in “combination therapy.” Covid-19 in most people produces transient, self-limiting illness. In some people it causes dysregulation of the immune system, organizing viral pneumonia and if not stopped there can kill you either through direct spread into other organs or the dysfunction that comes from the body’s response to that. We greatly increase the risk of that happening by telling you to go home and eat chicken soup until you’re choking; by the time you are choking anything you could have done, including using drugs that might partially block replication or suppress excess inflammatory response (e.g. antihistamines, drugs such as HCQ or Ivermectin, etc.) or put a stop to the organizing pneumonia (e.g. inhaled steroids such as budesonide) may not work at all or have greatly-reduced effectiveness.

That’s stupid but its what damn near every so-called “medical professional” has told you to do for the last 18 months. That advice may be valid for a cold virus but it definitely is not when the virus in question can and sometimes does result in wildly-inappropriate systemic inflammation and immune dysregulation. HIV, on the other hand, progressively destroys your immune system and then a whole bunch of things that usually don’t kill people at all (like PCP) get going in your body and finish you off. In other words HIV is akin to cancer, which if not stopped will kill you with near 100% certainty by screwing things up to the point that your body cannot fix it anymore, whereas Covid-19, in most people, is a self-limiting respiratory infection.

The problem with developing drugs like this is that if they get into other cells, not virally-infected ones, they can also cause those errors in the DNA replication and thus terminate the cell’s propagation and cellular line. Depending on how quickly those cells replicate in the human body that might be a small and self-limiting problem (e.g. they replicate fast and only a few of them get “polluted”) or it might be a ticking time bomb that ultimately screws you in hard-to-predict and impossible to treat ways (e.g. slowly-replicating types of cells where a lot of them get polluted.) It’s even worse if you’re a person of reproductive age as cellular replication happens very rapidly in a developing fetus and thus any such impact has a high probability of over-expressing in that circumstance. This is exactly how thalidomide babies happened and its not necessarily limited to women either since half the genetic material comes from the man and unlike women who start with all of the eggs they will ever have men are continually producing new sperm cells which conceivably could carry that damage into the zygote.

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VanDen Bossche warned us.

• Predominance of Antibody-Resistant Covid Variants In Breakthrough Cases (Mxiv)

Associations between vaccine breakthrough cases and infection by SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants have remained largely unexplored. Here we analyzed SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequences and viral loads from 1,373 persons with COVID-19 from the San Francisco Bay Area from February 1 to June 30, 2021, of which 125 (9.1%) were vaccine breakthrough infections. Fully vaccinated were more likely than unvaccinated persons to be infected by variants carrying mutations associated with decreased antibody neutralization (L452R, L452Q, E484K, and/or F490S) (78% versus 48%, p = 1.96e-08), but not by those associated with increased infectivity (L452R and/or N501Y) (85% versus 77%, p = 0.092). Differences in viral loads were non-significant between unvaccinated and fully vaccinated persons overall (p = 0.99) and according to lineage (p = 0.09 – 0.78).


Viral loads were significantly higher in symptomatic as compared to asymptomatic vaccine breakthrough cases (p < 0.0001), and symptomatic vaccine breakthrough infections had similar viral loads to unvaccinated infections (p = 0.64). In 5 cases with available longitudinal samples for serologic analyses, vaccine breakthrough infections were found to be associated with low or undetectable neutralizing antibody levels attributable to immunocompromised state or infection by an antibody-resistant lineage. These findings suggest that vaccine breakthrough cases are preferentially caused by circulating antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants, and that symptomatic breakthrough infections may potentially transmit COVID-19 as efficiently as unvaccinated infections, regardless of the infecting lineage.

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“No hospital admissions, deaths, nor adverse drug effects were reported in our patient population.”

• Antihistamines And Azithromycin As A Treatment For Covid-19 (PMC)

Between March and April 2020, 84 elderly patients with suspected COVID-19 living in two nursing homes of Yepes, Toledo (Spain) were treated early with antihistamines (dexchlorpheniramine, cetirizine or loratadine), adding azithromycin in the 25 symptomatic cases. The outcomes are retrospectively reported. The primary endpoint is the fatality rate of COVID-19. The secondary endpoints are the hospital and ICU admission rates. Endpoints were compared with the official Spanish rates for the elderly. The mean age of our population was 85 and 48% were over 80 years old.


No hospital admissions, deaths, nor adverse drug effects were reported in our patient population. By the end of June, 100% of the residents had positive serology for COVID-19. Although clinical trials are needed to determine the efficacy of both drugs in the treatment of COVID-19, this analysis suggests that primary care diagnosis and treatment with antihistamines, plus azithromycin in selected cases, may treat COVID-19 and prevent progression to severe disease in elderly patients.

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Also an expert on immigration.

• ‘Grinch’ Fauci Mulls Canceling Christmas Due To Covid (RT)

White House health adviser Anthony Fauci has insisted that Covid-19 is not being spread by untested immigrants. He also claims the virus remains such a threat that traditional Christmas celebrations might need to be canceled. During a Sunday interview on CNN, Fauci was asked about a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll that found 55% of Republicans partially blame the spread of Covid-19 on immigrants and tourism. The survey follows scrutiny of the Biden administration over tactics at the US-Mexico border, where White House officials have admitted many migrants are not required to be tested for coronavirus and are subsequently released into the US with a notice to attend court at a later date.


Fauci said he did not see any connection between the spread of the virus and immigration. “This is not driven by immigrants. This is a problem within our country, the same way it’s a problem within other countries throughout the world,” the infectious-diseases expert said. “They are not the driving force of this,” he added. “Let’s face reality here.” Fauci was also asked about Title 42 – a Trump-era policy that permits the expulsion of migrants caught illegally crossing the border during the coronavirus pandemic. In response, the doctor said that “expelling” immigrants was “not the solution to an outbreak.” Fauci’s comments were met with plenty of criticism on social media, though many others agreed and echoed his view that there was scant connection between untested migrants and Covid-19 cases.

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We have an idea what the problem is with endless booster shots.

• Israel Tightens Covid ‘Green Pass’ Rules, Sparking Protest (AP)

Israel restricted its COVID Green Pass on Sunday to allow only those who have received a vaccine booster dose or recently recuperated from coronavirus to enter indoor venues. The new criteria mean that nearly 2 million people will lose their vaccination passport in the coming days. Israel is the first country to make a booster shot a requirement for its digital vaccination passport. The move is widely seen as a step to encourage booster vaccination among those who have yet to receive a third dose. Under the new guidelines, people must have received a booster shot to be eligible for a green pass. Those who have received two vaccine doses, and those who have recovered from coronavirus, will be issued passes valid for six months after the date of their vaccination or recovery.


The government’s advisory cabinet on coronavirus was set to convene Sunday to discuss existing restrictions and guidelines. Technical problems hamstrung the Health Ministry’s rollout of the updated green pass as millions of Israelis tried to reissue digital documentation that would allow entry to shops, restaurants, cultural events, gyms and other indoor venues. Scores of Israelis staged demonstrations around the country in protest of the green pass system, with convoys of cars clogging morning commutes as many Israelis returned to work Sunday after September’s Jewish High Holidays. Opponents of the system said it is a form of forced vaccination. “We are totally against any forced vaccinations, or any forced medications, and we are totally against doing anything to our children and grandchildren that we don’t agree with,” said Sarah Felt, who protested along the main highway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

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The Testimonies Project.

• The Israeli Face Of Pain After Pfizer Shots (Farber)

When you see real people, faces, voices, against the ordinary backdrops of their homes, and you see the sorrow in their eyes, it becomes impossible to keep wild sorrow at bay any longer. Words become displaced by tears. Even rage, you realize, is a waiting room, a stalling place where you numb the sorrow, where you keep it slightly away from your heart. And the outpost thought, looping constantly, the train’s last station: “This can’t be happening.”

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Your future.

• How Democray Ends (Prasad)

The pandemic events of 2020-2021 outline a potential pathway for a future democratically elected President of the United States to systematically end democracy. The course of events leading to this outcome need not be a repeat of the direct assault on the Capitol, but a distortion of risk of illness as a justification for military force and suspension of democratic norms. Sometime over the next quarter century, it is inevitable that America, and all nations, will experience a cold and flu season above average. In a typical season approximately 40,000 Americans may die, but it is possible an above average season may see 80,000 or more deaths.

Inevitably some location(s) in the country will experience a surge in cases. Television news will show overworked hospital workers, and report that Intensive Care Unit beds have nearly run out– of course, ICU’s often operate near capacity, so this finding alone may not be that noteworthy, but in our attention economy, it may be sensationalized. Some afflicted individuals will be young children– typical for the flu, and these anecdotes will surely be emotionally salient. A video of a young boy or girl on life support machines may be used to show how dire things are. These events will then serve as an opportunity for a strong federal response.

A future US president may declare that the crisis in the region from influenza is unprecedented. Too many children are dying, and hospitals are near capacity. Citing the lessons of COVID19—that if anything we acted too late—the President may call upon the governor to issue a shelter in place warning. A week later, citing a continued rise in case, and “non-compliance” of the local people, the President could order the national guard or army troops in to secure the region. Notably, military force was applied in Australia during COVID19.

During the COVID19 pandemic, some of the most ardent calls for strong restrictions came from members of the political left. If a future president is on the political right; this would serve as a natural opportunity to remind the public that strong tactics were precisely what the other side demanded more of during COVID19. Life and safety, particularly that of children, is of paramount importance, and strong lockdowns must ensue. In many regions across the world, one political party preferred stronger countermeasures to COVID19, in all those nations, the opposing party that has the advantage for misusing force in the future.

Eventually, inevitably, disagreements with the policies will arise. Social media may see small explosions of dialog critical of prolonged lockdown or skeptical of hospital volumes. A future leader can seize this opportunity for a forced takeover of media or social media companies. Misinformation that compromises a national attempt at safety must be shut down. The future leader can remind the public that during COVID19 many were critical that we did not do enough to ban dangerous and misleading speech, and now we are doing just that.

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Brexit squared.

• Staff Shortages Spreading To All Corners Of UK Business (G.)

Staff shortages are rippling out from the haulage, farming and hospitality sectors to almost all parts of the economy, putting “severe pressure” on medium-sized business across the UK, a new survey has warned. More than a quarter of the 500 firms polled said the lack of staff was putting pressure on their ability to operate at normal levels, with reduced stock – due to the resulting supply chain disruption – hurting their business. While some firms had considered cutting production, others were planning to raise prices, leading to concerns over rising inflation as the Christmas trading period approaches. Nearly a fifth said they were increasing wages to attract new staff, while others were introducing extra perks to lure workers.

But the report, released by accountancy and advisory firm BDO, said the knock-on effects for consumers could be “significant”, with nearly one-third of businesses saying the prices would need to rise in the next three to six months to make up for the disruption. More than one-third of firms in the survey said they had also cut down on the kinds of products and services on offer, with a further third planned to do the same over the coming month unless the situation radically improves. A similar proportion expect stock ranges to be affected long-term.

Businesses blamed the pandemic and Brexit for the shortage of overseas workers, with 38% saying a lack of regional talent was hurting their ability to recruit much-needed staff. “Brexit, global supply chain issues and the long tail of Covid-19 has created a perfect storm for UK businesses,” BDO partner Ed Dwan said. “After navigating the challenges of the pandemic and hoping for some respite, businesses have found themselves facing more major disruption, with those across almost all sectors reporting staff shortages.

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She wants more censorship.

• Whistleblower Blasts Facebook For Prioritizing Profits Over ‘Democracy’ (RT)

A former Facebook data scientist, responsible for censoring “dangerous” and “misleading” information during the 2020 US election, has all but accused the social media giant of facilitating the January 6 “insurrection.” In the ‘60 Minutes’ interview with CBS on Sunday, Frances Haugen, 37, came forward as the whistleblower behind a recent WSJ investigation and a Senate hearing. But while her Tuesday subcommittee appearance, titled ‘Protecting Kids Online’, will be focused on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of teens, in her interview Haugen touched upon another aspect of why she believes unregulated Facebook poses a danger to “democracy.” Haugen was recruited into Facebook’s Civic Integrity unit back in 2019, and gladly joined because she personally “lost a friend to online conspiracy theories.”

She had helped battle misinformation during the US presidential elections, but the moment Facebook rolled back its safeguards became a turning point when she told herself: “I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.” “As soon as the election was over, they turned them back off or they changed the settings back to what they were before, to prioritize growth over safety. And that really feels like a betrayal of democracy to me.” Hagen said there was a constant conflict of interests “between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” accusing the company of always prioritizing profits.

“Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money,” she said. “Like, they basically said, ‘Oh good, we made it through the election. There wasn’t riots. We can get rid of Civic Integrity now.’ Fast forward a couple months, we got the insurrection.”

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France capped the rise at 12.6%, and said no more hikes until March/April. But Bulgarian prices rose 36% last week. Be careful out there.

• Electricity Bills In Italy Rise By Almost 30 Percent From Friday (ZH)

Household electricity bills will rise by 29.8% for the typical family and gas bills will go up by 14.4%, Italy’s energy regulatory authority Arera confirmed in a press release last week. The new national tariffs came into effect on Friday, the start of the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase comes amid surging energy costs across Europe, and beyond. The price rise passed on to Italian consumers could’ve reached 45 percent, Arera said, if the government had not stepped in to cap the new rise in rates. The Italian government last week announced measures costing three billion euros aimed at limiting a steeper rise in energy prices for consumers.

As well as keeping the cost to most families below 30 percent and 15 percent, the government measures will keep additional costs at zero for those least well-off, including households with an income under 8,265 euros, families with at least 4 dependent children with an income of less than 20,000 euros, those who receive a state pension or unemployment benefit, and people who are seriously ill, Sky TG24 reports. The measures also cut the ‘general charge’ from gas bills for all throughout the last quarter of 2021, and on electricity for families and some small businesses. Last quarter, the retail cost of electricity rose by 9.9% and gas by 15.3% from July 1st. The government also stepped in that time to cap costs, with 1.2 billion euros in state aid.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said last week that many of the reasons for the energy price increases were temporary but called for long-term action, including at a European level, to address the problem, including through diversifying supplies. Italy is highly dependent on imports and consumes a large amount of gas. Some 40% of its primary energy consumption is gas, compared with about 15 percent in France, according to official statistics for both countries.

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When I saw Luke Harding listed as the main author for the Guardian, I stopped reading. That was before I saw there are no American names mentioned. What a bunch of BS.

• Pandora Papers (RT)

Leaked papers appear to show how some of the world’s elites accumulate property empires while avoiding millions in taxes, with reports focusing on European, Middle Eastern and South American leaders, and world-famous celebrities. Obtained from 14 offshore banking institutions and analyzed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the ‘Pandora Papers’ reveal the financial chicanery of more than 100 billionaires, 35 current and former world leaders, and 300 public officials. The first round of information, handed to a select list of international outlets and studied by “600 journalists,” was published on Sunday.

According to the ICIJ, King Abdullah II of Jordan is a prolific user of shell corporations to manage his global property empire. The monarch reportedly used 36 of these companies from 1995 to 2017 to purchase 14 luxury properties in the US and UK worth more than $106 million. The king’s lawyers say he used these stand-in companies to maintain his privacy rather than to dodge any taxes. Azerbaijan’s ruling Aliyev family has traded almost $500 million worth of British property in recent years, according to the leaks. One of these properties was sold by an Aliyev-owned front company to the Queen’s crown estate for a sizable $90 million.

[..] Despite featuring an image of Vladimir Putin front and center on their introductory piece, and mentioning Putin nearly 50 times in a spin-off article about the “hidden riches of Putin’s inner circle,” The Guardian had to admit in its reporting that the Russian president “does not appear in the files by name.” Instead, the paper focused on Putin’s “friends,” including billionaire businessman Gennady Timchenko, and Putin’s rumored past “girlfriend.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 30 2021

Jul 302021
 
 July 30, 2021  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  122 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Van Gogh painting sunflowers 1888

 

• CDC: Delta Variant Spreads As Easily As Chickenpox, Causes More Severe Infection (CNN)
• CDC Expected To Announce Friday That Vaccines Don’t Work on Delta Variant (CTH)
• Health Officials Less Confident About Covid Vaccine Due To Delta Variant (JTN)
• Gottlieb: Delta Surge May Be Reversing In Hot Spots (ZH)
• Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination (bioRxiv)
• Why Is the FDA Attacking a Safe, Effective Drug? (WSJ)
• US Capitol Police Walk Back Order To Arrest Those Without A Mask (JTN)
• Biden Mandates All Federal Workers Must Be Vaccinated… Except Postal Workers (ZH)
• CDC To Drop ‘Gold Standard’ PCR Test (JTN)
• German Court Tells Facebook To Reinstate Deleted Posts (Pol.eu)

 

 

Things are shifting, and everyone’s busy saving their faulty faces. It’s about time to decree that only the vaccinated need to wear masks, but they’re not quite there yet.

 

 

Those tests? Whenever you feel like it, Pfizer. No hurry.

 

 

FDA approval in September? That’s 2024, right?!

 

 

 

 

Fleming vax or not risk reduction 0.8-1.25%

 

 

If true, it would be game changing (a first?!). A virus that becomes more transmissible and more lethal at the same time. For now, don’t buy it.

As for those MSNBC interviews, that’s where most people get “informed”. Tragic.

• CDC: Delta Variant Spreads As Easily As Chickenpox, Causes More Severe Infection (CNN)

The Delta coronavirus variant surging across the United States appears to cause more severe illness and spread as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal document from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The document — a slide presentation — outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky confirmed the authenticity of the document, which was first reported by The Washington Post. “I think people need to understand that we’re not crying wolf here. This is serious,” she told CNN. “It’s one of the most transmissible viruses we know about. Measles, chickenpox, this — they’re all up there.”

The CDC is scheduled to publish data Friday that will back Walensky’s controversial decision to change guidance for fully vaccinated people. She said Tuesday the CDC was recommending that even fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors in places where transmission of the virus is sustained or high.[..]The presentation also cites three reports that indicate the Delta variant — originally known as B.1.617.2 — might cause more severe disease. The CDC, the document advises, should “acknowledge the war has changed.” It recommends vaccine mandates and universal mask requirements. The virus is once against surging across the US — especially in areas where fewer people are vaccinated. The US averaged more than 61,300 new daily cases over the last week — an average that’s generally risen since the country hit a 2021 low of 11,299 daily cases on June 22, according to Johns Hopkins University data. “The number of cases we have now is higher than any number we had on any given day last summer,” Walensky told CNN.

WaPo

Read more …

Nothing to do with the very very effective vaccines of course.

• CDC Expected To Announce Friday That Vaccines Don’t Work on Delta Variant (CTH)

The White House would never credit Donald Trump with the vaccine rollout unless there was something negative about the vaccine that is going to hit the newswires; that is a no-brainer. That baseline is why CTH said two months ago to watch for the moment when the White House credits Trump with the vaccine, because that’s the moment when: (1) the vaccine was going to be identified as dangerous; and/or (2) reports would show the vaccine did not work. Today the White House credited President Trump with the vaccine:

….And right on cue, the late-evening reporting indicates that tomorrow the CDC will announce the vaccine doesn’t work (against the Delta variant). Hence, the need for masks, social distancing and/or possibly lockdowns 2.0. Reminder, when the Intelligence Branch needs to get the public relations engaged, they use the New York Times. [New York Times] – […] New research showed that vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant carry tremendous amounts of the virus in the nose and throat, she said in an email responding to questions from The New York Times. The finding contradicts what scientists had observed in vaccinated people infected with previous versions of the virus, who mostly seemed incapable of infecting others. That conclusion dealt Americans a heavy blow: People with so-called breakthrough infections — cases that occur despite full vaccination — of the Delta variant may be just as contagious as unvaccinated people, even if they have no symptoms.”

Bottom line of this narrative shift… vaccinations don’t work. Everything goes back to square one. Blame Trump, not us. There is also data showing that COVID hospitalizations offer no distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated; and in the example of LA county, the percentage of vaccinated people hospitalized with COVID is identical to the percentage of vaccinated people in the general population. [70% of population vaccinated, 70% of COVID hospitalization patients are vaccinated.] The vaccine offers no benefit from the standing of hospitalization… or so it appears.

In San Francisco, 77% of the population is vaccinated and 83% of the COVID hospitalizations at University of California SF Hospital are previously vaccinated [link]. Again, highlighting the vaccine offers no benefit from the standpoint of hospitalization. Additionally, there’s data from a recent Pfizer study where 44,000 patients were studied. 22,000 were given the vaccine, and 22,000 received the placebo. The results amid both groups was almost identical.

Read more …

She keeps at it still: “..in rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious..”

What will the message be tomorrow?

• Health Officials Less Confident About Covid Vaccine Due To Delta Variant (JTN)

Public health confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be waning as officials warn of enhanced danger — even for vaccinated individuals — from the “Delta variant” of the SARS-Cov-2 virus. For most of the past year officials have claimed that vaccinations are the only viable path back to normalcy and away from lockdowns and other aggressive mitigation measures. “Look at the folks in your community who have gotten vaccinated and are getting back to living their lives — their full lives,” President Joe Biden said at a May press conference, arguing that the vaccine was “going to help them and their loved ones be safe, get our businesses open again, and get us back to normal.”

The rollout of the vaccines starting last year and continuing throughout the spring and summer of this year has been hailed as the driving force behind the reopening of the economy and the ending of masking mandates and similar restrictions. Yet over the past week the tone from public officials has grown increasingly grim, with leaders now appearing to doubt that the vaccine is sufficient to forestall COVID transmission and potential catastrophe due to the rise of the Delta variant. A marked shift was seen this week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reversed its earlier masking guidance and claimed that fully vaccinated individuals should wear masks indoors in areas with high COVID transmission.

The Delta variant “behaves uniquely differently from past strains of the virus that cause COVID-19,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a press conference this week. “Information on the Delta variant from several states and other countries indicate that in rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others,” she claimed. “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendations.” White House coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci signaled a similar shift during an interview with NPR when he called the Delta variant “a different virus.” The Delta variant “is much more capable of transmitting from people to people,” Fauci claimed, stating that when even fully vaccinated people contract the virus “they are capable of transmitting the infection to someone else.”

The shift from strong confidence in the vaccine to the masking of fully vaccinated individuals comes after several weeks of steadily rising COVID-19 cases throughout the United States. Experts have feared that the Delta variant could cause a surge in hospitalizations and deaths, leading to catastrophic scenarios of the kinds hypothesized at the outset of the pandemic last year.

Read more …

But wait, wasn’t it as contagious as ebola?

• Gottlieb: Delta Surge May Be Reversing In Hot Spots (ZH)

While hospitalizations and deaths are clearly higher in areas where vaccination rates are lower, rates are still well below their levels from just a few months ago. And although Dr. Anthony Fauci would have you believe that Delta might cause the end of the world as we know it, his isn’t the only view on the matter. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former director of the FDA, believes delta will peak within the next two to three weeks. And after breaking the data down to the regional level, Bloomberg has apparently spotted some trends that suggest as Delta’s global conquest has been characterized by “hyperspeed spikes in infections that eased dramatically after about two months.”

s The first US outbreaks that caught officials’ eye were in Missouri and Arkansas, and they both started in earnest around the end of May, per BBG. They noted that the rest of the country will be keeping a close eye on both states (along with a handful of others, including California). The rest of the US will be watching those states closely as infections spread. The cases are prompting authorities to reconsider masking and other public-health measures, but many state and local governments are doing so gingerly and only after outbreaks are well underway. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Wednesday that she would require masks again at indoor county facilities such as libraries.

Bloomberg also cited the following tweet from Dr. Gottlieb where he explained how Rt, a virus’s effective reproductive number, plays into forecasts of the virus’s spread. The logic behind it is pretty simple: If Rt falls below 1, then the virus’s spread should start to slow. Gottlieb cited data from covidestim, a project with contributors from Yale School of Public Health, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Stanford Medicine, showing the Rt rate in the worst hit states is already trending toward 1. When the numbers did this in the UK, seen as being just a few weeks ahead of the US, cases quickly started falling off.

Read more …

The conclusion is simple: “..memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination.”.

But they still need to package it in jargon.

• Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination (bioRxiv)

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection produces B-cell responses that continue to evolve for at least one year. During that time, memory B cells express increasingly broad and potent antibodies that are resistant to mutations found in variants of concern. As a result, vaccination of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines produces high levels of plasma neutralizing activity against all variants tested. Here, we examine memory B cell evolution 5 months after vaccination with either Moderna (mRNA-1273) or Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) mRNA vaccines in a cohort of SARS-CoV-2 naive individuals.


Between prime and boost, memory B cells produce antibodies that evolve increased neutralizing activity, but there is no further increase in potency or breadth thereafter. Instead, memory B cells that emerge 5 months after vaccination of naive individuals express antibodies that are equivalent to those that dominate the initial response. We conclude that memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination. These results suggest that boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines would produce a quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.

Read more …

The WSJ goes ivermectin. Next up NYT, then CNN?

• Why Is the FDA Attacking a Safe, Effective Drug? (WSJ)

The Food and Drug Administration claims to follow the science. So why is it attacking ivermectin, a medication it certified in 1996? Earlier this year the agency put out a special warning that “you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.” The FDA’s statement included words and phrases such as “serious harm,” “hospitalized,” “dangerous,” “very dangerous,” “seizures,” “coma and even death” and “highly toxic.” Any reader would think the FDA was warning against poison pills. In fact, the drug is FDA-approved as a safe and effective antiparasitic. Ivermectin was developed and marketed by Merck & Co. while one of us (Mr. Hooper) worked there years ago.

William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering and developing avermectin, which Mr. Campbell and associates modified to create ivermectin. Ivermectin is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. Merck has donated four billion doses to prevent river blindness and other diseases in Africa and other places where parasites are common. A group of 10 doctors who call themselves the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance have said ivermectin is “one of the safest, low-cost, and widely available drugs in the history of medicine.” Ivermectin fights 21 viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19. A single dose reduced the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in cells by 99.8% in 24 hours and 99.98% in 48 hours, according to a June 2020 study published in the journal Antiviral Research.

Some 70 clinical trials are evaluating the use of ivermectin for treating Covid-19. The statistically significant evidence suggests that it is safe and works for both treating and preventing the disease. In 115 patients with Covid-19 who received a single dose of ivermectin, none developed pneumonia or cardiovascular complications, while 11.4% of those in the control group did. Fewer ivermectin patients developed respiratory distress (2.6% vs. 15.8%); fewer required oxygen (9.6% vs. 45.9%); fewer required antibiotics (15.7% vs. 60.2%); and fewer entered intensive care (0.1% vs. 8.3%). Ivermectin-treated patients tested negative faster, in four days instead of 15, and stayed in the hospital nine days on average instead of 15. Ivermectin patients experienced 13.3% mortality compared with 24.5% in the control group.

Moreover, the drug can help prevent Covid-19. One 2020 article in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications looked at what happened after the drug was given to family members of confirmed Covid-19 patients. Less than 8% became infected, versus 58.4% of those untreated.Despite the FDA’s claims, ivermectin is safe at approved doses. Out of four billion doses administered since 1998, there have been only 28 cases of serious neurological adverse events, according to an article published this year in the American Journal of Therapeutics. The same study found that ivermectin has been used safely in pregnant women, children and infants.

Read more …

Fiddling with Nancy’s new hobby.

• US Capitol Police Walk Back Order To Arrest Those Without A Mask (JTN)

Capitol police Thursday night walked back a memo that ordered officers to deny entry and possibly arrest those who enter the United States House of Representatives who are not wearing masks after mask mandates were reintroduced earlier this week. “Regarding the House mask rule, there is no reason it should ever come to someone being arrested. Anyone who does not follow the rule will be asked to wear a mask or leave the premises. The Department’s requirements for officers to wear masks is for their health and safety,” the USCP said in a statement Thursday night.


On Wednesday, newly appointed Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger ordered officers to enforce new mask mandates in the House, including denial of entry and even arrest. “If a visitor or staff member fails to wear a mask after a request is made to do so, the visitor or staff shall be denied entry to the House Office Buildings or House-side of the U.S. Capitol,” Manger said Wednesday. “Any person who fails to either comply or leave the premises after being asked to do so would be subject to an arrest for Unlawful Entry.”

Read more …

They must be vaccinated so they spread more virus. A Chinese study claims the viral load is 1,000 times higher.

• Biden Mandates All Federal Workers Must Be Vaccinated… Except Postal Workers (ZH)

Earlier in the week Biden suggested that those who are yet to be vaccinated are “sowing enormous confusion.” “We have a pandemic because of the unvaccinated, and they’re sowing enormous confusion,” Biden said. “And there’s only one thing we know for sure, if those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world. So get vaccinated. If you haven’t, you’re not nearly as smart as I said you were.” And now he has gone to ’11’ on the ‘your body, no choice’ amplifier, saying tonight that he’ll require federal workers to prove they’ve been vaccinated against Covid-19 or wear masks and submit to frequent coronavirus testing. Additionally, the rules will cover millions of federal workers, including the military and on-site contractors.

“What I’m trying to do is keep people safe,” Biden said Thursday at the White House. “If in fact you’re unvaccinated, you present a problem to yourself, to your family and to those with whom you work.” Biden also asked his team to take steps to apply similar standards to all federal contractors and encourage private sector employers to follow the same approach. There’s just one thing… the federal worker mandate does not apply to postal workers? What do postal workers know about the science that Biden doesn’t? We don’t know, but dare we mention it could be related to the 220,000-member strong union’s leaders waiting to be negotiated with. As The Epoch Times’ Isabel van Brugen detailed earlier,

“The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) has said that it opposes mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations, amid reports that the White House is considering so-called vaccine passports as a condition of employment for federal employees. The union, which represents over 220,000 postal workers, released a statement late Wednesday saying that while it will encourage postal workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19, it is “not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent.” “Issues related to vaccinations and testing for COVID-19 in the workplace must be negotiated with the APWU. At this time the APWU opposes the mandating of COVID-19 vaccinations in relation to U.S. postal workers,” the statement said.

Read more …

Not a word about the flu.

• CDC To Drop ‘Gold Standard’ PCR Test (JTN)

PCR tests, long hailed as the “gold standard” in detecting SARS-Cov-2 cases, will be dropped by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the beginning of next year. Polymerase chain reaction tests have been a mainstay of the U.S. and global response to COVID-19 since early in 2020, but health officials have warned the diagnostic tool poses a risk of false-positive results. The test works by amplifying a biological sample through successive cycles until a virus — if it’s present in the assay — can be detected by the testing machine. The CDC announced this month that it would be withdrawing its request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the emergency use authorization of the test. The agency urged laboratories to “begin their transition to another FDA-authorized COVID-19 test.”

CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund told Just the News that the agency was discontinuing its support for the test “given the availability of commercial options for clinical diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection, including multiplexed … and high-throughput options.” “Although the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus … Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel met an important unmet need when it was developed and deployed and has not demonstrated any performance issues, the demand for this test has declined with the emergence of other higher-throughput and multiplexed assays,” she said via email. Those risks have been acknowledged by multiple prominent public health figures, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Biden and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In a July 2020 interview on an infectious disease podcast, Fauci warned that the sensitive PCR tests might, if allowed to progress through too many amplification cycles, return a “positive” result when it was actually just detecting “dead nucleotides.” The World Health Organization earlier this year warned in a medical product alert that PCR tests carry with them the risk of “false positives” because the test might only be picking up small fragments of the virus via heavy amplification. “[D]isease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases,” the alert stated. “This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.”

Read more …

“We welcome the ruling of the Court, which upholds the principle that platforms like ours are allowed to remove hate speech according to company policies and block the respective user accounts,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

• German Court Tells Facebook To Reinstate Deleted Posts (Pol.eu)

Germany’s Federal Court ruled Thursday that Facebook had to reinstate racist comments because it had improperly removed them. In its ruling, the Karlsruhe-based court said that while Facebook had the right to decide what stays on or off the platform, it needs to be more forthcoming with users on how it does so. The court found that the social media company did not inform two users that it had removed their posts. It added that the company should have also informed and given users an opportunity to respond before suspending them from its platform. The decision sets a major precedent for how social media companies police content on their platforms, likely giving a boost to EU lawmakers in Brussels, who are pushing to add further obligations on social media companies.

It also upends a years-long status quo whereby platforms were effectively free to develop and implement content moderation policies on their own, which critics say has resulted in a lack of transparency, information, and potential recourse for the users. The case in question is from 2018, when Facebook removed posts in which two German users attacked migrants because it said the posts violated its policy on hate speech, and then suspended the users’ accounts for several days. The users complained that the posts’ removal was a violation of free speech. The court said while Facebook was entitled to set strict content rules banning hateful speech and to block users, the way it implemented its content moderation policy was not proper.

“Provisions in general terms and conditions are ineffective if they unreasonably disadvantage the contractual partner of the user contrary to the requirements of good faith,” said the court. Facebook will not be allowed to delete the posts again after they are reinstated. “We welcome the ruling of the Court, which upholds the principle that platforms like ours are allowed to remove hate speech according to company policies and block the respective user accounts,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Read more …

 

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Tucker Walensky

 

 

Fauci about delta variant and children…

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 21 2021

Jul 212021
 
 July 21, 2021  Posted by at 8:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  82 Responses »


René Magritte Mysteries of the horizon (a.k.a. The Masterpiece) 1955

 

• Debate Erupts Between Trusted Medical Doctor And Dr. Fauci (Bbee)
• Fauci Loses It With Sen. Rand Paul Over Wuhan Lab Funding Accusations (RT)
• Pfizer Granted Priority Review for FDA Vaccine Approval (Claus)
• Over Half Of Australia’s Population Now Under Stay-at-Home Orders (RT)
• NSW Health Official Tells Australians To Refrain From Talking To People (RT)
• More Than 200 Facebook Groups Actively Circulating Vaccine Misinformation (F.)
• World Champion Boxer To Retire Due To Introduction Of Covid Passports (Mir.)
• Statins for Cancer and COVID; Beyond Ivermectin
• Biden Regime Jails a ‘Domestic Terrorist’ (Julie Kelly)
• The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada (WS)
• Lawmakers Sound Alarm Over China Purchases Of US Farmland (ZH)
• Oliver Stone’s New JFK Assassination Doc Is Being Ignored By The MSM (RT)

 

 

 

 

Unvaxxed

 

 

Might as well give it a Babylon Bee overdo. Fauci hides behind semantics.

• Debate Erupts Between Trusted Medical Doctor And Dr. Fauci (Bbee)

During an explosive Senate hearing this week, Senator and trusted medical doctor Rand Paul argued with Anthony Fauci—a dangerous conspiracy theorist who thinks vaccines don’t work and that the government is not funding the creation of medical abominations in secret labs. “You are a LIAR!” said Rand Paul, pointing gravely at Dr. Fauci. “You are a LYING LIAR who LIES!” Fauci, who was initially taken aback by the accusation, immediately recovered and said: “NO! It is YOU who is the LIAR, you LIAR!” Fauci then bobbed his head back and forth in a very sassy way and snapped his fingers in a zig-zag pattern.


“OOOOooo! Rand Paul got OWNED!” said CNN. “OOOOooo! Fauci got DESTROYED!” said Fox News. The C-SPAN segment immediately went viral, leading to more requests for the two men to face off in another confrontation. C-SPAN then announced they would be organizing a pay-per-view rematch, in which the trusted medical doctor and Dr. Fauci would call each other liars in an octagon-shaped cage. Unfortunately, Fauci backed out at the last minute after C-SPAN instituted a strict “no bioweapons” policy for the face-off.

Full exchange between Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Fauci.

Read more …

“You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you’re saying that’s not gain-of-function?” Paul asked. “That is correct..”

• Fauci Loses It With Sen. Rand Paul Over Wuhan Lab Funding Accusations (RT)

White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has told Kentucky Senator Rand Paul “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” after Paul accused him of lying about his alleged role in controversial virus research in China. Questioning Fauci during a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday about the government’s coronavirus response, Sen. Paul (R) implied that Fauci lied to Congress in May when he said that the National Institute of Health (NIH) did not fund so-called ‘gain-of-function’ research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, believed by many to be the source of the coronavirus pandemic. “I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” Fauci replied. Paul presented a 2015 academic paper that asserts such research did take place at the Wuhan lab, and was partly funded by the NIH.


One US scientist has reviewed the paper and concluded that the research within “seemed to meet the definition of gain-of-function,” — but that it did not lead to the creation of the novel coronavirus. The term ‘gain-of-function’ refers to modifying and increasing the transmissibility of animal viruses to better study their effect on humans. “This paper that you’re referring to was judged … up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function,” Fauci responded, before Paul interjected. “You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you’re saying that’s not gain-of-function?” Paul asked. “That is correct, and Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially,” Fauci snapped back.

Despite the paper’s own definition of gain-of-function research seemingly being the same as Paul’s, the White House scientist still insisted that the research outlined in the 2015 paper “is not” the same thing. The paper itself does not prove that the Covid-19 coronavirus was created in the Wuhan lab, but it does imply that similar research on bat-borne coronaviruses was carried out there, with the NIH’s financial support. Such research used to be done in the US, but was paused by the Obama administration in 2014 and subsequently outsourced to China. Between 2015 and 2019, the Wuhan lab received, albeit indirectly, more than $800,000 in grants from the NIH. $600,000 in grant payments were given to the institute via EcoHealth Alliance, a private research firm, and $216,000 via the University of California, Irvine.

Fauci GoF
https://twitter.com/i/status/1401891543322185728

Letter to Do: criminal referral

Read more …

As the vaccines are very clearly failing, now is of course the time to speed up the process, because that is what people are not yet allowed to know.

• Pfizer Granted Priority Review for FDA Vaccine Approval (Claus)

Last Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration granted pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech priority review designation for their coronavirus vaccine for those who are age 16 and older. This step marks the last hurdle that must be cleared in order for the vaccine — the very first to come onto the world scene, being approved for emergency use back in December of 2020 — to be distributed and marketed like any other inoculation. Until now, the products, like the other two coronavirus vaccines used in the US, have had emergency use authorization (EUA) only — a legal sticking point that has led to some questioning their efficacy and safety and adding to the vaccine hesitancy that continues to plague some areas of the country and the world.

Anti-vaccine proponents argue that they refuse to accept a product that has not been fully cleared by the FDA, and many corporate entities along with the federal government, will not require coronavirus inoculations while they are still under EUA-only status. This status allows for vaccine doses to be shipped to hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and other organizations to be administered to the general public — but not distributed and marketed. Although the vaccine came out in a little more than 300 days since the genome of the virus was determined — an amazing feat of modern medical technology — the perceived delay in the granting of full authorization has led many to speculate that this feeds into an anti-vaccination narrative which may be partly responsible for the spike in infections in the last month worldwide.

As the Delta variant, first detected in India, continues to sweep across the world, the lack of formal approval of the vaccines has sparked concern that a window of opportunity may have been lost, as people for the most part are allowed to gather together without restrictions across the US while sizable pockets of vaccine resistance remain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday that the number of new coronavirus cases were up by nearly 70% in just one week, while hospitalizations are up by nearly 36%, after weeks of steeply declining numbers all over the US. The Delta variant appears to be approximately 225% more transmissible than the original strains of the coronavirus. NPR reports that one recent study from China found that those who are infected with Delta have on average about 1,000 times more copies of the virus in their respiratory tracts than those who were infected with the original strain.

Not only that but they also become infectious earlier in the course of their illness, leading to much more transmission since many do not realize they have become infected. The emergency use authorization vaccines that are currently on the market, however, are strikingly effective against the Delta variant. [..] At this point, experts say the picture looks fairly rosy. “The level of antibodies seem to be holding up pretty well, so we have to watch and see what happens over the course of the coming months,” stated National Institutes of Health’s Francis Collins, in an interview with NPR. The New York-based pharma giant must now go through a rigorous review process that experts believe will be completed in January of 2022. Even with expedited handling of the approval process, speeded up from its usual 10 months, the lightning-fast spread of the Delta variant, which is so many more times as transmissible as the original coronavirus, is rushing past that timeline.

Read more …

Australia is done. Pull the plug and let it pour down the drain. The only things people there think are “wrong” in their isolation campaign are in not building quarantine accomodation, and in not ordering vaccines fast enough. Blind as bats.

• Over Half Of Australia’s Population Now Under Stay-at-Home Orders (RT)

South Australia has entered a snap lockdown of seven days, joining neighboring Victoria and New South Wales as the third state to implement stay-at-home orders, with half of the country’s population now under restrictions. South Australia entered a week-long lockdown to quell a spike in coronavirus cases at 6pm local time on Tuesday. Premier Steven Marshall defended the decision to impose harsh measures, stating that “we hate to put these restrictions in place, but we have just one chance to get this right” to avoid an extended lockdown period and cases spiraling out of control. Under the new rules, all South Australian citizens are required to stay at home unless they are essential workers or need to purchase necessary produce or attend medical appointments.


They are allowed outside to exercise for a maximum of 90 minutes and within a 2.5km (1.5 mile) radius of their home. All educational institutions will be shut and transition to online learning. The decision to impose a strict snap lockdown comes after five coronavirus cases were reported, with the fifth being an isolated incident from the other four cases. All of the cases have been confirmed to be the Delta variant, which is 60% more transmissible than other variants, according to Public Health England. As of Tuesday, some 13 million Australians, over half of the country’s population, are under a stay-at-home mandate. Neighboring Victoria extended its lockdown until July 27. It was intended to last only five days, however, new Covid-19 cases are still being recorded there.

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How crazy can one get and still be taken serious? “She was named New South Wales ‘Woman of the Year’ for 2021..”

• NSW Health Official Tells Australians To Refrain From Talking To People (RT)

With Sydney still in lockdown amid a handful of new Covid-19 cases, the top health official for New South Wales has called for a new level of social-distancing inhumanity: not having conversations with other people. After reporting a whopping 78 new Covid-19 cases and one death in the state, Chief Health Officer Dr. Kerry Chant told reporters on Tuesday that Australians shouldn’t engage in conversations, even if both parties were wearing masks, and regardless of vaccination status. “Whilst it’s human nature to engage in conversation with others, to be friendly, unfortunately, this is not the time to do that,” Chant said. So, even if you run into your next-door neighbor in the shopping center … don’t start up a conversation. Now is the time for minimizing your interactions with others.

Masks don’t afford “total protection,” Chant added, so residents must avoid talking to each other and “be absolutely sure that, as we go about our daily lives, we do not come into contact with anyone else that would pose a risk.” Since the pandemic began, Australia has repeatedly staved off the spread of Covid-19 with some of the world’s most draconian lockdown measures, in pursuit of driving new cases down to zero even at the expense of civil liberties. Lockdowns have been reimposed recently, as infections flared up again. In Melbourne, for instance, just about everything other than grocery stores and hospitals was shuttered for nearly four months, and the city entered its fifth lockdown last week. Alice Springs ordered a new lockdown in June after just one new infection was reported.

Much like the White House’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in the US, Chant has been championed by mainstream media outlets as a pandemic-fighting hero. The Guardian referred to the doctor as “unflappable” and a “secret weapon.” She was named New South Wales ‘Woman of the Year’ for 2021. Social media critics weren’t charmed by her advice against having conversations, however. “Unbelievable,” TV presenter and author Tonia Buxton said. “Don’t behave like a human, forget humanity, just do as you are told.”

DON’T ACT LIKE A HUMAN. DON’T TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS

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Start reading, hoping to find what this misinformation is. Nothing until the last paragraph -apparently you’re supposed to know(?!) but I don’t, where someone says “I truly believe that they are out to kill people with this shot..” Now I still don’t know what misinformation they talk about. Pretty sure that’s on purpose.

• More Than 200 Facebook Groups Actively Circulating Vaccine Misinformation (F.)

After President Biden came down hard on Facebook last week over coronavirus vaccine misinformation, the company responded with almost equal force, insisting in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t responsible for how that type of content has spread on the web. But new research released Tuesday suggests Facebook does indeed remain a place where such misinformation is circulating: Media Matters for America, a liberal tech watchdog organization, says it has found 284 active private and public Facebook Groups currently distributing vaccine misinformation, more than double the amount the researchers found in April. Over a half million users belong to these groups. Media Matters identified six groups with more than 15,000 members, and most of those half-dozen groups are private, underscoring an on-going problem for the social network.

These groups are invite only, making them harder to track and a more fertile ground for misinformation to spread than public ones, which invite more immediate scrutiny. The discussion around Facebook’s role in handling vaccine misinformation was heightened on Friday when President Biden made stark comments about his views on the company’s culpability. “They’re killing people,” he said. The White House has since tried to soften its stance on the matter, and Facebook raced to point to efforts to combat vaccine misinformation. In a blog post released a day after President Biden’s comments, Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of intregrity, said the platform had removed more than 18 million pieces of Covid-19 information since the pandemic started and limited the spread of 167 million pieces its fact checkers judged as inaccurate.

More broadly, Facebook has introduced new tools for users who control Groups, though those features are only as effective as those group leaders want them to be. Groups represent an enormous avenue of growth for Facebook—and an unending source of problems for it. Over the last few years, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has clearly emphasized Groups’ place within the app, and the company launched a redesign in 2019 to encourage their use. Even public Groups tend to encourage more intimate and more engaged conversations than on Facebook’s core Newsfeed, exactly what the company has sought to foster. But Groups have proven to be problematic hotbeds, used to do things such as spread Qanon content and white supremacy posts.

The largest group identified by Media Matters is one called “Canadian Deaths and Adverse Reaction,” which numbers almost 95,000 users. The researchers unearthed a number of posts containing conspiracy theories, including one falsely stating that the vaccines are part of a secret ongoing experimental trial. One user in another large group, Covid19 Vaccine Victims & Families, which has 46,4000 members, wrote this: “I truly believe that they are out to kill people with this shot…I think it causes people who have health issues to have [sic] make it worse and those with no health issues I think this jab is also giving people illnesses they never had. People need to wake up and say no to the jab.”

Tucker VAERS

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He won’t be alone.

• World Champion Boxer To Retire Due To Introduction Of Covid Passports (Mir.)

World champion boxer Sunny Edwards has vowed to retire if Covid-19 vaccine passports are introduced in September. Boris Johnson announced yesterday that Covid-19 passports will be required for nightclubs and venues with large crowds, which could signal a passport being required at sporting events such as boxing later on in the year. And newly crowned British world champion Edwards has claimed he could hang up his gloves in protest. “Looks like I’m retiring from the game in September.” Edwards posted on Twitter in response to the announcement. The announcement could signal an increase in the uptake of vaccinations across the UK, in particular amongst sports stars who could be required to take the vaccine in order to compete in the future unless they are given immunity from the policy that will be introduced.

Several boxing stars have been caught up with vaccine debates during the pandemic, including undisputed super-lightweight champion Josh Taylor who recently defeated Jose Ramirez in Las Vegas to claim the belts and remain undefeated. He has also posted on Twitter against the idea of vaccine passports, slamming the rules as a ‘dictatorship’ which could signal his stance to any future rules that are introduced into boxing. “Do as [sic] your told or be excluded from society! #Dictatorship ” Taylor posted on his Twitter page today after the announcement. He also responded to a fan who questioned his stance on the passport and whether his choice to do so was an example of freedom.

“The fact you’re being told to take something in order to live life, simply isn’t freedom! It’s oppression.” Taylor said. The pandemic has had a damaging effect on boxing in recent weeks with Tyson Fury’s outbreak in camp causing the third face-off in the ring against Deontay Wilder to be rescheduled for October 9. Despite reports of the ‘Gypsy King’ testing positive himself for the virus, he was pictured greeting fans in Las Vegas amid rumours that he may soon be returning to the UK after the trilogy fight broke down. The lineal heavyweight champion also refused his second vaccine ahead of the fight, after he relayed fears to his team of suffering with ill-effects ahead of his attempt to defeat Wilder for the second time in two years.

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Interesting, but statins?

• Statins for Cancer and COVID; Beyond Ivermectin

When my friend contracted Glioblastoma, I reacted by researching what else could be done for him – scientifically. I went through PubMed, and I read the latest studies. I read accounts of medical professionals who survived their terminal cancers. And I found patterns. One concept that arose was the use of repurposed drugs IN ADDITION to the standard of care. Another was that Cancer Stem Cells, CSCs, were very real and could reseed cancer. These roots of cancer were stimulated to spread and regrow with cutting into the tumor [Surgery], poisoning it [Chemotherapy], and radiating it [Radiation Therapy]. I realized, to my horror, our own best treatment was making cancers resistant and causing them to return, often fatally. So why was this information hidden? Everyone should know this.

When I found that Dr. Ben Williams, a Harvard-educated professor, had cured his Glioblastoma using a cocktail of repurposed drugs, I knew my friend had a chance to do the same. And it was up to me to get him this information. I found that a combination of four common drugs, Atorvastatin, Mebendazole, Metformin, and Doxycycline, could almost double the expected GBM survival time when added to the standard of care based upon a study by Dr. Agrawal published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. In addition, these four drugs had been used safely, for decades, to treat other diseases. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610246/ As I dug deeper, I realized that instead of using this cocktail as a last-ditch effort to save a person from cancer after it has already developed, WHAT IF ONE USED IT TO PREVENT CANCER from ever developing?

I searched Amazon. I found no physicians had written about this to the general public except for Dr. Raymond Chang in 2014. He wrote a book, “Beyond the Magic Bullet.” Dr. Ben Williams, a PhD, had written about his personal experience in beating his GBM with repurposed drugs in “Surviving Terminal Cancer.” These books, unfortunately, had very thin readerships. Finally, a magnificent documentary was made that interviews both of these men, “Surviving Terminal Cancer.” However, very few people have watched this. Most who do, have Glioblastoma, a disease which afflicts about 10,000 Americans each year – people like Beau Biden, people like John McCain, and now my friend Evan.

Only 25 % survive longer than one year. Less than 5% make it past five years. And Ben Williams has now survived 26 years. His friend Professor Richard Gerber has now survived 13 years and uses repurposed drugs. Richard followed Ben Williams’ strategy.

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“And therein lies the real crime: Paul Hodgkins, a working-class American who took a bus on the 900-mile journey to the nation’s capital to support his president and protest a clearly rigged election, defiled the ruling class’ palace with a Trump flag.”

• Biden Regime Jails a ‘Domestic Terrorist’ (Julie Kelly)

“Paul Hodgkins is not my enemy.” Fighting back tears, Patrick Leduc, an attorney representing a man charged in connection with the January 6 protest at the Capitol, made that statement in a dramatic court hearing Monday morning. Leduc, by the way, is no snowflake. On Tuesday, the 33-year-old U.S. Army reservist will be deployed to the Middle East for his third tour. Leduc cited his military oath—to protect the country from “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”—to refute the government’s accusation that Paul Hodgkins, 38, is a domestic terrorist. “Words have meaning,” Leduc told U.S. District Court Judge Randoph Moss. “I have been shot at by real terrorists. If we’re going to label this as domestic terrorism, where do we draw that line?”

Sadly, after listening to Monday’s proceedings, I must conclude there is no line. Americans on the political Right are considered an enemy no less lethal than al-Qaeda and minus the civil libertarians to defend them. It’s clear the Biden regime, in cooperation with federal judges, will stop at nothing to destroy the lives of people who protested the 2020 presidential election. This includes people like Paul Hodgkins, who was sentenced to eight months in prison for denouncing what his government was about to do on January 6—certify a rigged, corrupt presidential election—and for supporting Donald Trump. Hodgkins, who lives in a working-class neighborhood in Tampa, took a bus alone from his home in central Florida to Washington, D.C. to attend Donald Trump’s January 6 speech.

After the speech, he walked to Capitol Hill. He later said he had no intention of going inside the building but got caught up in the moment. Like many pro-Trump protesters, Hodgkins did not bring a weapon. He did not assault a police officer or damage any property. He was inside the building for roughly 22 minutes, entered the Senate chamber, hoisted a “Trump 2020” flag, took some selfies, and left. Nonetheless, law enforcement arrested Hodgkins in Tampa on February 16 and charged him with four misdemeanors and one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding. Joe Biden’s Justice Department has added the obstruction charge to roughly 200 misdemeanor cases so federal prosecutors can get jail time for Capitol defendants.

[..] Paul Hodgkins, who had nothing much to start with, will now lose everything. He will live the rest of his life as a convicted felon. A broken man railroaded by a broken country. But it was clear on social media that the bloodlust of the Left still is unsatiated. Destroying him isn’t enough; they want heads to roll. “We are a country ruled by cancel culture now,” Leduc told me. “There is no compassion or grace.”

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You better look good than feel good.

• The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada (WS)

At least the Bank of Canada is officially acknowledging the craziness of the Canadian housing market, which has been deemed to be the second biggest housing bubble in the world, behind New Zealand, whose central bank also officially acknowledged its housing bubble, and stopped QE cold turkey, unlike the Fed, which has refused to officially acknowledge anything. Starting last October, the Bank of Canada began the process of ending its asset purchases. Since then, it stopped buying mortgage-backed securities, unwound its holdings of repos and Treasury bills, and cut the amount of its weekly purchases of Government of Canada bonds for the third time, from C$5 billion per week last year to C$2 billion per week now. The assets on its balance sheet dropped from C$575 billion in March to C$487 billion as of last week. And in its pronouncements, the housing bubble looms large.

[..] The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index tracks prices of single-family houses through “sales pairs,” similar to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index in the US, comparing the price of a house that sold in the current month to the price of the same house when it sold previously. Since it tracks how many more Canadian dollars it takes to buy the same house over time, it is a measure of house price inflation. In the Greater Toronto Area, the house price spike “decelerated”: In June, the index jumped by 2.7% from May, but that crazy increase (annualized 32%!) was the slowest increase since March. Year-over-year, the index jumped by 15.9%. Note the decline in house prices in 2017, and the wavering that followed, until the BoC opened its vault:

All charts here are on the same scale as the chart for Vancouver, with more white space appearing at the top as we go down the list, indicating the slower price increases over the past 20 years, compared to Vancouver. In Hamilton, Ontario, house prices spiked by 3.8% in June from May, and by a mind-boggling 28.0% year-over-year, thank you Bank of Canada hallelujah. But now the BoC, with an eye on this exponential increase in house price inflation, is pulling back its radical monetary policies. Here too, the housing market had started to decline and waver in 2017, and it was the BoC’s pandemic policies that triggered this spike:

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1/3 for China, 1/3 for Bill Gates, 1/3 for Monsanto.

• Lawmakers Sound Alarm Over China Purchases Of US Farmland (ZH)

A group of bipartisan lawmakers are sounding the alarm over foreign purchases of prime US agricultural real estate, in an effort to lessen China’s influence on the US economy. Recent legislation advanced by House lawmakers warns that China’s presence in the American food supply poses a national security risk, while key Senators have expressed interest in keeping American farms in American hands, according to Politico. The debate over farm ownership comes amid broader efforts by Congress and the Biden administration to curb the nation’s economic reliance on China, especially in key industries like food, semiconductors and minerals deemed crucial to the supply chain. The call for tighter limits on who owns America’s farms has come from a wide range of political leaders, from former Vice President Mike Pence to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), after gaining momentum seeded in farm states.

“America cannot allow China to control our food supply,” said Pence during a Wednesday speech at the Heritage Foundation in which he urged President Biden and Congress to “end all farm subsidies for land owned by foreign nationals.” By the beginning of 2020, Chinese owners controlled approximately 192,000 agricultural acres in the US, worth around $1.9 billion – including land used for farming, ranching and forestry, according to the Department of Agriculture. It’s a small but growing percentage of the nearly 900 million acres of total US farmland – with the USDA reporting in 2018 that China’s agricultural investments have grown more than tenfold since 2009.

“The Communist Party has actively supported investments in foreign agriculture as part of its “One Belt One Road” economic development plans, aiming to control a greater piece of China’s food supply chain. “The current trend in the U.S. is leading us toward the creation of a Chinese-owned agricultural land monopoly,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) warned during a recent House Appropriations hearing.= The committee unexpectedly adopted Newhouse’s amendment to the Agriculture-FDA spending bill (H.R. 4356 (117)) that would block any new agricultural purchases by companies that are wholly or partly controlled by the Chinese government and bar Chinese-owned farms from tapping federal support programs. -Politico

Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) warned that the new law would “perpetuate already rising anti-Asian hate,” however she and committee leaders have indicated a willingness to find a solution as the legislation works its way through Congress, according to the report. It’s expected to reach the House floor before the end of this month as part of a broader appropriations package, however the Senate has yet to draft their own version of the spending bill.

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Nobody cares who shot JFK anymore. We now have the Insurrection. Much bigger threat.

• Oliver Stone’s New JFK Assassination Doc Is Being Ignored By The MSM (RT)

When ‘JFK: Revisited’ premiered on Monday, July 12, the mainstream media didn’t praise it or pan it. They pretended it didn’t exist. The New York Times’ vast coverage of Cannes consisted of 11 articles, most focusing on the more salacious content, such as ‘Benedetta’, a steamy story about lesbian nuns, ‘Annette’, a musical where Adam Driver sings while performing oral sex on Marion Cotillard, and ‘Titane’, where a woman has sex with a car and lactates oil. But not once has ‘JFK Revisited’ been mentioned in the supposed ‘paper of record’. The same is true of the Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, the Guardian, the Atlantic, the New Yorker and every mainstream outlet I searched, as none of them acknowledge ‘JFK Revisited’exists at all.

The only media mentions I found were in trade papers likeVariety and the Hollywood Reporter, and in the British press, in the Times and Daily Telegraph. Their reaction to the film was split, with Variety and The Times giving negative reviews and THR and the Daily Telegraph praising it. Considering that Cuba, intelligence agency nefariousness, and conspiracy theories are making headlines, and that the small critical assessment of the documentary is split, it’s curious that the media is maintaining the status quo by endorsing sexual depravity at Cannes instead of pursuing truth by debating ‘JFK Revisited’. I’m kidding, of course. It’s no surprise that the American myth-making media who bequeath to us the official narrative from which ‘respectable’ people will never deviate, are tossing ‘JFK Revisited’ down the memory hole and lavishing praise on horny nuns and coital Cadillacs.

You see, the establishment loves to distract the masses and hate conspiracies – except for the ones they love. JFK assassination conspiracies are rejected outright as unserious, despite a plethora of damning evidence, because they indict the establishment itself. Half of the talking heads on cable news are former (wink-wink) intelligence community members, and the vast majority of journalists are lapdogs for the intel agencies, so they’re not going to bite the hand that feeds them in service to the truth about the JFK assassination. This same anti-conspiratorial press spent four years breathlessly belching up every half-assed Russia conspiracy story they could conjure – including Russiagate, claims of Russia using microwave weapons or hacking into power grids and voting machines – and shouted them from the rooftops 24/7 until they become presumed true despite a complete lack of evidence.

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Debt Rattle July 19 2021

Jul 192021
 
 July 19, 2021  Posted by at 9:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  94 Responses »


Giuseppe Leone Ragusa Sicily 1953

 

• 2nd Week in a Row: More Covid Vax Deaths than COVID-19 Deaths in the US (GP)
• Four New Discoveries About Safety And Efficacy Of COVID Vaccines (DfCE)
• Response to Dr. Bhakdi (VanDen Bossche)
• Israel Bans Entry To Vaccinated Tourists (JPost)
• 2 More Texas Dems Who Fled State To Block GOP Voting Bill Test Positive (NYP)
• Facebook Says 85% of US Users Are Pro-Vaccine (RT)
• The Panic Pandemic (Tierney)
• “Misinformation” Means Whatever The Censors Want It To Mean (Tracey)
• Leak Uncovers Global Abuse Of Cyber-surveillance Weapon (G.)
• The Controversial Prosecutor At The Heart Of The Julian Assange Case (IC)
• Tribes Are Leading the Way to Remove Dams and Restore Ecosystems (Yes)

 

 

 

 

Heparin

 

 

 

 

We have a trend.

• 2nd Week in a Row: More Covid Vax Deaths than COVID-19 Deaths in the US (GP)

The VAERS website released its weekly numbers on Friday. There are now 11,140 reported deaths from the COVID vaccine in the United States. This is up from 9,125 reported deaths from the COVID-19 vaccinations total from last week. The number of deaths linked to vaccines this year has absolutely skyrocketed. According to the CDC’s own data. The VAERS database contains information on unverified reports of adverse events (illnesses, health problems and/or symptoms) following immunization with US-licensed vaccines. The CDC government website links to VAERS platform. Two weeks ago VAERS reported 6,985 deaths due to the COVID vaccines. Last week that number jumped to 9,048. That number is now at 11,140.

“The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database contains information on unverified reports of adverse events (illnesses, health problems and/or symptoms) following immunization with US-licensed vaccines. Reports are accepted from anyone and can be submitted electronically at www.vaers.hhs.gov.” There have been over 400,000 adverse reactions reported to the COVID vaccine. Last Week: there were 1,918 total COVID-19 deaths in the United States. Last Week: There were 2,092 deaths from the COVID Vaccines — According to the CDC-linked VAERS website. That means there were 174 more Covid vaccine deaths in the United States last week than Covid deaths in the United States last week. Why is this not making headlines?

45,000 have died within 3 days from the COVID Vax
https://twitter.com/i/status/1416947451056033795

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“Doctors for Covid Ethics has sent the following letter to tens of thousands of doctors in Europe, summarising four recent scientific findings critical to the COVID-19 vaccination program. The letter explains each finding as it relates to the biology of COVID-19 vaccines, including interactions with the immune system.

Taken together, the letter warns that these new pieces of evidence force all physicians administering COVID-19 vaccines to re-evaluate the merits of COVID-19 vaccination, in the interests of their own ethical standing, and their patients’ safety and health.”

• Four New Discoveries About Safety And Efficacy Of COVID Vaccines (DfCE)

Discovery 1: SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Circulates Shortly After Vaccination. SARS-CoV-2 proteins were measured in longitudinal plasma samples collected from 13 participants who received two doses of Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine [1]. With 11 of the 13, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was detected in the blood within only one day after the first vaccine injection. Significance. Spike protein molecules were produced within cells that are in contact with the bloodstream—mostly endothelial cells—and released into the circulation. This means that a) the immune system will attack those endothelial cells, and b) the circulating spike protein molecules will activate thrombocytes. Both effects will promote blood clotting. This explains the many clotting-related adverse events—stroke, heart attack, venous thrombosis—that are being reported after vaccination.

Discovery 2: Rapid, Memory-Type Antibody Response After VaccinationSeveral studies have demonstrated that circulating SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG and IgA antibodies became detectable within 1-2 weeks after application of mRNA vaccines [1–3]. Significance. bRapid production of IgG and IgA always indicates a secondary, memory-type response that is elicited through re-stimulation of pre-existing immune cells. Primary immune responses to novel antigens take longer to evolve and initially produce IgM antibodies, which is then followed by the isotype switch to IgG and IgA.bA certain amount of IgM was indeed detected alongside IgG and IgA in some studies [1,4]. Importantly, however, IgG rose faster than IgM [4], which confirms that the early IgG response was indeed of the memory type.

This memory response indicates pre-existing, cross-reactive immunity due to previous infection with ordinary respiratory human coronavirus strains. The delayed IgM response most likely represents a primary response to novel epitopes which are specific to SARS-CoV-2.bMemory-type responses have also been documented with respect to T-cell-mediated immunity [5–7]. Overall, these findings indicate that our immune system efficiently recognizes SARS-CoV-2 as “known” even on first contact. Severe cases of the disease thus cannot be ascribed to lacking immunity. Instead, severe cases might very well be caused or aggravated by pre-existing immunity through antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE, see below).

Discovery 3: SARS-CoV-2 Elicits Robust Adaptive Immune Responses Regardless Of Disease Severity Serum antibody profiles were reported for 203 individuals following SARS-CoV-2 infection [8]. 202 (>99%) of the participants exhibited SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies. With 193 individuals (95%), these antibodies prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection in cell culture and also inhibited binding of the spike protein to the ACE2 receptor. Furthermore, CD8+ T-cell responses specific for SARS-CoV-2 were clear and quantifiable in 95 of 106 (90%) HLA-A2-positive individuals. Significance. This study confirms the above assertion that the immune response to initial contact with SARS-CoV-2 is of the memory type.

In addition, it shows that this reaction occurs with almost all individuals, and particularly also with those who experience no manifest clinical symptoms. The goal of the vaccination is to stimulate production of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, but we now know that such antibodies can and will be rapidly generated by everyone upon the slightest viral challenge, even without vaccination. Severe lung infections always take many days to develop, which means that if the antibodies generated by the memory response are needed, they will arrive on time. Therefore, vaccination is unlikely to provide significant benefit with respect to the prevention of severe lung infection.

Discovery 4: Rapid Increase Of Spike Protein Antibodies After The Second Injection Of MRNA Vaccines IgG and IgA antibody titres were monitored before vaccination and after the first and the second injection of mRNA vaccines [3]. Antibody titres rose with some delay after the first injection, then plateaued, but rose again very shortly after the second injection. Significance. Even though the antibody response to the first injection is of the memory type, the small time lag after the injection may mitigate adverse reactions, because the abundance of spike protein on the cells in the blood vessel walls and in other tissues may have already passed its peak when the antibodies arrive.

The situation changes dramatically with the second injection. Then the spikes are produced and protrude into the bloodstream that is already swarming with both reactive lymphocytes and antibodies. The antibodies will cause the complement system [9,10] and also neutrophil granulocytes to attack the spike protein-bearing cells. The possible consequences of all-out self-attack by the immune system are frightening.

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The article above references a Dr. Bahkdi video VanDen Bossche has issues with. Could we have an actual scientific discussion? Where do the censors stand on this one?

• Response to Dr. Bhakdi (VanDen Bossche)

I herewith wanted to react to a recent video posted by Dr. Bhakdi (https://evidencenotfear.com/proof-that-puts-an-end-to-the-sars-cov-2-narrative-professor-sucharit-bhakdi-oracle-films/). I was quite stunned about the statements he made and could not believe that this had allegedly been published. Hence, I consulted the publications Dr. Bhakdi has been referring to in his presentation (you’ll find them in the article that accompanies the video). My contribution attached explains why his viewpoint in regard of herd immunity and protection against variants is highly questionable. Given his background and credentials, I am very surprised at his conclusions. It’s certainly not that I cannot refrain from criticizing but if we’re not going to stick to the science, we’re going to lose our precious credibility.

I am sure many of you have seen Dr. Bhakdi’s presentation. As much as I’d like to confirm his position, I cannot agree with his interpretation. Dr. Bhakdi is basically claiming that because of previous exposure to common cold viruses we have immune memory cells that can be recalled upon exposure to Sars-CoV-2 and protect us! This is not true! While there is no doubt that there is some cross-reactivity between immune responses to some spike(S)-derived epitopes on beta coronaviruses (CoVs), these immune responses are not cross-PROTECTIVE. Dr. Bhakdi is confusing all along cross-reactivity (which basically means that antibodies (Abs) or T cells induced by one CoV can BIND similar [conserved] epitopes on some other CoVs) and cross-protection.

However, immune RECOGNITION does not equal immune PROTECTION. None of the publications Dr. Bhakdi is referring to has analyzed or claims cross-PROTECTION elicited by other CoVs. Again, Abs that bind to Sars-CoV-2 do not necessarily neutralize the virus and prevent it from entering the cell. Of course, many people will have a history of common cold infection and hence may rapidly recall some spike-directed Abs (i.e., towards epitopes that are shared with Sars-CoV-2) upon exposure to Sars-CoV-2 or after immunization with Sars-CoV-2-derived antigens. However, this doesn’t mean at all that these rapidly rising IgG and IgA Dr. Bhakdi is referring to will neutralize Sars-CoV-2 and protect you from Covid-19 disease!

In addition, Sars-CoV-2-induced Abs were only found to cross-react with 2 out of the 4 common cold CoVs (i.e., only for beta coronavirus HKU1 and OC43) and the cross-reactivity was ‘much lower than that observed for the remaining CoV epitopes’. Furthermore, his statement that people who have built immunity against CoV are automatically protected against all Sars-CoV-2 variants is not true either for exactly the same reasons (i.e., Abs that bind to variants do not necessarily neutralize them and could even be at risk of causing Ab-dependent enhancement of disease; ADE).

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Israel is a prime example alright; of how the vaccine hunger screws up a country.

• Israel Bans Entry To Vaccinated Tourists (JPost)

Vaccinated tourists will not be allowed to enter Israel on August 1, as had been previously planned, Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash said Sunday, also announcing that the authorities will discuss measures to restrict all travel. “We are postponing the date for the entry of tourists; it is not going to happen on August 1,” he said, adding that a new date has not been set. “Unfortunately, the current situation does not permit us to allow tourists to enter.” The director-general also warned the public that with the Delta variant raging around the world, this is not a time to fly abroad. He said the authorities are examining how to restrict travel, either by expanding the list of countries under the travel ban or severe travel warning, or by other means.


Channel 12 reported that health official are considering several options for a recommendation to bring before the cabinet, including shutting the airport for non essential traveling and requiring all travelers to enter isolation regardless of their immunization status and the country they fly from. However, according to the report, the most likely recommendation will be to significantly expand the list of countries under travel ban or travel warning – in both cases all returnees have to quarantine, for the first group Israelis are prohibited from visiting unless they obtain a permission from the devoted special governmental committee.

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Not arrested yet; they won’t return till August.

• 2 More Texas Dems Who Fled State To Block GOP Voting Bill Test Positive (NYP)

Two more Texas Democrats who traveled to Washington, DC, last week to prevent a vote on a Republican voting bill have tested positive for the coronavirus, a report said. The new cases, announced late Sunday by the Texas House Democratic Caucus, are in addition to the three other state Democratic lawmakers on the trip who have already tested positive for COVID-19, the Texas Tribune reported. The infected lawmakers are all fully vaccinated, the report said — and one is experiencing mild symptoms. Among the two newest members to test positive is state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, the lawmaker said. “Today, I received a positive COVID-19 rapid antigen test result. I am fully vaccinated, and had tested negative on Friday and Saturday.


“I am quarantining until I test negative, and I am grateful to be only experiencing extremely mild symptoms,” he told the newspaper in a statement. The Lone Star State Democrats left the state House of Representatives last Monday and flew aboard two chartered flights to the nation’s capital to scuttle a Republican-backed election reform bill by depriving the chamber a quorum. While in Washington to wait out the special legislative session called by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the Democrats met with congressional lawmakers to press them to approve the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The state lawmakers have been slammed by Republicans for running away from their duties to represent their constituents, and Abbott has threatened to have them arrested when they return to Texas in August.

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Because our users are not terribly smart people…

• Facebook Says 85% of US Users Are Pro-Vaccine (RT)

Facebook has patted itself on the back for encouraging vaccine acceptance among its US users, noting an increase of 10-15% since January, while firing back at President Joe Biden’s claim of subverting the rollout. “The data shows that 85% of Facebook users in the US have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” Facebook VP of Integrity Guy Rosen said in a blog post on Saturday, rejecting Biden’s charge that social media was to blame for the lack of enthusiasm among Americans towards the Covid-19 jabs. On Friday, Biden tore into social media platforms such as Facebook, accusing them of “killing people” by not cracking down on non-conventional opinions about vaccination fervently enough.

“They’re killing people… Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,” the US president said. Dismissing the allegation, Rosen accused Biden of essentially making Facebook a scapegoat for his administration’s failure to reach its self-imposed goal of having 70% Americans vaccinated by July 4. “President Biden’s goal was for 70% of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed,” Rosen said, arguing that figures “tell a very different story to the one promoted by the administration.” Facebook, Rosen claimed, has seen a dramatic increase in confidence in Covid-19 vaccines among its American users in the last six months.

“Since January, vaccine acceptance on the part of Facebook users in the US has increased by 10-15 percentage points (70%->80-85%),” Rosen wrote, citing a recent survey by Carnegie Mellon University. He added that distrust of the jabs among racial and ethnic minorities has “shrunk considerably” as well. Facebook has deployed “unprecedented resources” in its fight against the pandemic, such as “pointing people to reliable information” and facilitating vaccine appointments, he noted. In addition to persuading people of the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines through pop-up labels under coronavirus-related posts, Facebook has been waging a war on information that does not align with the official stance of the World Health Organization (WHO) or local governments.

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” It was a dangerous experiment being conducted without knowing the answer to the most basic question: Just how lethal is this virus?”

• The Panic Pandemic (Tierney)

The United States suffered through two lethal waves of contagion in the past year and a half. The first was a viral pandemic that killed about one in 500 Americans—typically, a person over 75 suffering from other serious conditions. The second, and far more catastrophic, was a moral panic that swept the nation’s guiding institutions. Instead of keeping calm and carrying on, the American elite flouted the norms of governance, journalism, academic freedom—and, worst of all, science. They misled the public about the origins of the virus and the true risk that it posed. Ignoring their own carefully prepared plans for a pandemic, they claimed unprecedented powers to impose untested strategies, with terrible collateral damage. As evidence of their mistakes mounted, they stifled debate by vilifying dissenters, censoring criticism, and suppressing scientific research.

If, as seems increasingly plausible, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan, it is the costliest blunder ever committed by scientists. Whatever the pandemic’s origin, the response to it is the worst mistake in the history of the public-health profession. We still have no convincing evidence that the lockdowns saved lives, but lots of evidence that they have already cost lives and will prove deadlier in the long run than the virus itself. One in three people worldwide lost a job or a business during the lockdowns, and half saw their earnings drop, according to a Gallup poll. Children, never at risk from the virus, in many places essentially lost a year of school. The economic and health consequences were felt most acutely among the less affluent in America and in the rest of the world, where the World Bank estimates that more than 100 million have been pushed into extreme poverty.

The leaders responsible for these disasters continue to pretend that their policies worked and assume that they can keep fooling the public. They’ve promised to deploy these strategies again in the future, and they might even succeed in doing so—unless we begin to understand what went wrong. The panic was started, as usual, by journalists. As the virus spread early last year, they highlighted the most alarming statistics and the scariest images: the estimates of a fatality rate ten to 50 times higher than the flu, the chaotic scenes at hospitals in Italy and New York City, the predictions that national health-care systems were about to collapse. The full-scale panic was set off by the release in March 2020 of a computer model at the Imperial College in London, which projected that—unless drastic measures were taken—intensive-care units would have 30 Covid patients for every available bed and that America would see 2.2 million deaths by the end of the summer.

The British researchers announced that the “only viable strategy” was to impose draconian restrictions on businesses, schools, and social gatherings until a vaccine arrived. This extraordinary project was swiftly declared the “consensus” among public-health officials, politicians, journalists, and academics. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, endorsed it and became the unassailable authority for those purporting to “follow the science.” What had originally been a limited lockdown—“15 days to slow the spread”—became long-term policy across much of the United States and the world. A few scientists and public-health experts objected, noting that an extended lockdown was a novel strategy of unknown effectiveness that had been rejected in previous plans for a pandemic. It was a dangerous experiment being conducted without knowing the answer to the most basic question: Just how lethal is this virus?

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Freedom of speech is dead, but not from the virus.

• “Misinformation” Means Whatever The Censors Want It To Mean (Tracey)

Government officials and their lackeys in the media often speak of the term “misinformation” as though it has some sort of universally-accepted, politically neutral definition. That’s always been total BS, but generating the mirage of neutrality has been a necessary ingredient in popularizing the “misinformation” concept over the past five years. Those who reject the impositions of mainstream cultural and political elites must not be simply wrong, but maliciously brainwashed by “misinformation” that complicit entities such as the social media platforms allow to proliferate.

In 2018, when these entities engineered a simultaneous cross-platform purge of Alex Jones, there was an avalanche of media apologia for this hitherto unprecedented act of censorship. Jones had caused unique harm, the journalists cried, and the platforms were merely “Enforcing The Rules.” But of course what they were oblivious to was that “the rules,” such as they exist, are just a function of power. “Misinformation” and other alleged infractions of social media “rules” are determined at the whim of whoever happens to wield censorship and speech-regulation power at that moment. Journalists themselves, chronically oblivious to their own power, were exactly the ones who agitated for the expulsion of Jones, and their agitation succeeded.

Here is an article I wrote the day after this cross-platform purge: “Alex Jones’ lunacy is self-evident and needs no further comment. The only relevant question is whether we want a media landscape in which a tiny cadre of unelected private officials are empowered to decide, in secret and with no mechanisms for accountability, that the time has come to purge this lunatic from the public square. “Now, just around three years later, we receive a declaration from a spokesperson for the President that the Federal Government is seeking to coerce, mandate, or otherwise bring about routinized cross-platform purges. “You shouldn’t be banned from one platform, and not others, for providing misinformation out there,” press secretary Jen Psaki demanded, creepily calling on the social media giants to create “robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties.”

So if you were under any illusion back in 2018 that this would ever stop with Jones — a figure believed to be sufficiently repulsive that any punishment doled out to him would not have broader implications for the average internet user — well, it didn’t take long for proof of just how wrong you were. Journalists and others with influential platforms, particularly those who spend all day everyday on the internet and rely on it for their livelihood, at least in theory have a duty to demonstrate some semblance of foresight. Meaning, to consider issues of public interest that go beyond their short-term desire for political vengeance.

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Big story yada yada, even Snowden says it, but it’s from the Guardian.

• Leak Uncovers Global Abuse Of Cyber-surveillance Weapon (G.)

Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using hacking software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, according to an investigation into a massive data leak. The investigation by the Guardian and 16 other media organisations suggests widespread and continuing abuse of NSO’s hacking spyware, Pegasus, which the company insists is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists. Pegasus is a malware that infects iPhones and Android devices to enable operators of the tool to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones. The leak contains a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that, it is believed, have been identified as those of people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016.

Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organisation, and Amnesty International initially had access to the leaked list and shared access with media partners as part of the Pegasus project, a reporting consortium. The presence of a phone number in the data does not reveal whether a device was infected with Pegasus or subject to an attempted hack. However, the consortium believes the data is indicative of the potential targets NSO’s government clients identified in advance of possible surveillance attempts. Forensics analysis of a small number of phones whose numbers appeared on the leaked list also showed more than half had traces of the Pegasus spyware. The Guardian and its media partners will be revealing the identities of people whose number appeared on the list in the coming days.

They include hundreds of business executives, religious figures, academics, NGO employees, union officials and government officials, including cabinet ministers, presidents and prime ministers. The list also contains the numbers of close family members of one country’s ruler, suggesting the ruler may have instructed their intelligence agencies to explore the possibility of monitoring their own relatives. The disclosures begin on Sunday, with the revelation that the numbers of more than 180 journalists are listed in the data, including reporters, editors and executives at the Financial Times, CNN, the New York Times, France 24, the Economist, Associated Press and Reuters.

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It’s personal.

• The Controversial Prosecutor At The Heart Of The Julian Assange Case (IC)

The battle to extradite WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange from the United Kingdom to the United States is shaping up to be a legal case of paramount importance to the future of national security reporting. The U.S. continues to press the case even after a change of administration, with President Joe Biden keeping up efforts to bring Assange to a U.S. court on Espionage Act charges for his role in publishing classified government documents. One little-noted name in filings from extradition hearings in the U.K. keeps popping up as a key figure in the U.S. government’s case: a federal prosecutor named Gordon Kromberg. On the central questions of what assistance Assange provided to whistleblower Chelsea Manning and the ostensible harm his actions caused to U.S. national security, a U.K. court filing earlier this year cites Kromberg’s assertions verbatim.

“Mr. Kromberg’s evidence on this is clear,” the filing says. “He stated that stealing hundreds of thousands of documents from classified databases was a multistep process.” The same document cites Kromberg again, claiming that “well over one hundred people were placed at risk from the disclosures and approximately fifty people sought and received assistance from the US” — references to purported U.S. intelligence assets outed by the documents WikiLeaks published. Kromberg, an assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, may be unknown to foreign and even many American observers. In U.S. legal circles, though, he has been a highly controversial figure for over two decades, dogged by accusations of bias and politicization in his prosecutions.

For years, civil rights activists and lawyers tried to draw attention to allegations of Kromberg’s abusive practices. Rather than being pushed into obscurity by these efforts, today he is serving as a key figure in one of the most important civil liberties cases in the world. In all, the January court documents from Assange’s extradition case mention Kromberg over 40 times to help make the legal argument for extraditing Assange. Many of his statements go to the heart of the Espionage Act case against the WikiLeaks publisher.

[..] In the years after the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks, Gordon Kromberg became the government’s point man on notorious terrorism cases involving allegations of torture and malicious prosecution. In the past, opposing counsels and civil rights groups accused him of engaging in racist behavior and using unethical tactics in pursuit of convictions. Legal experts said that the inclusion of a notoriously politicized and aggressive prosecutor on a high-profile extradition case like Assange’s is a sign of how strongly the government is motivated to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher and bring Espionage Act charges at all costs.

“A common factor in Kromberg’s career has been a willingness to take very provocative positions on behalf of the government and stay the course with them,” said Wadie Said, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina and author of “Crimes of Terror: The Legal and Political Implications of Federal Terrorism Prosecutions.” “He has also shown great willingness to take on highly political cases and to be a lightning rod himself for attention; he often makes himself part of the story with his own actions and statements.” Said added, “From my perspective, some of the things that Kromberg has said in the past and the positions that he has taken are quite tendentious and even vindictive in terms of his mindset toward the person that he is targeting.”

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Good.

• Tribes Are Leading the Way to Remove Dams and Restore Ecosystems (Yes)

Cameron Macias bent down to examine a small pile of sawdust-filled scat on the floor of the former Lake Mills on the Elwha River in the northwest corner of Washington state in 2016. It was a sign that beavers were moving into the area after a 100+ year absence. “There’s very small dam-building activity in some of the side tributaries,” says Macias, who was working at the time as a wildlife technician for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, of which she is a member. “It’s kind of funny and ironic because of the dam removal,” Macias says with a laugh. The dams she’s referring to—the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams—were removed in 2011 and 2014 respectively, and together they are considered the world’s largest dam removal project to date.

Many other tribes have looked to the success of the Elwha River dam removals in bringing down fish-blocking dams in their lands as well, including along the Snake River and the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. Together, the country’s 2 million dams block access to more than 600,000 miles of river for fish. And by 2030, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that 80% of those dams will be beyond their 50-year lifespans. Given how obsolete and potentially dangerous this infrastructure will be, not to mention its negative effects on declining fish stocks, the best solution for many aging dams is to simply remove them. But bringing down a dam is a big job.

When the Elwha River dams fell, it was the culmination of many decades of successful partnerships among the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and dozens of other local and national organizations. Today, those partnerships continue to support the tribe in righting historic wrongs. The Elwha Dam was built in 1910 to provide electricity to attract new settlers, in flagrant violation of a Washington state law that said dams must allow for fish passage. At the time, no one consulted the Lower Elwha Klallam people, whose culture rests on the salmon that would be blocked by the dams. “We had a few of the elders that even stood in the areas of the lower dam where they were starting to build to protest,” says Frances Charles, the tribal chairwoman for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

But the dam construction proceeded, and afterward, hatcheries were put in as a sort of life support to keep salmon populations afloat. Every year, the fish born in the hatcheries would try to return to the spawning grounds of their ancestors, banging their heads on the dam in a desperate attempt to get upstream. “We ourselves felt like we were banging our heads against the concrete wall, no different than the salmon,” Charles says. Things changed in January 1986 when the tribe filed a motion to stop the relicensing of the dams, citing that the dam prevented them from exercising their treaty rights because it blocked fish passage. “The tribe and [Olympic National] Park and the environmental interests said, ‘You know, if you’re going to license these things, you’re going to provide fish passage,’” says Mike McHenry, the Tribe’s fisheries habitat manager. Studies showed that building fish passages wouldn’t effectively restore the salmon runs, so the decision was made to take down the dams. Still, it took an Act of Congress and $325 million to complete the job.

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