Jun 072023
 


Caspar David Friedrich Woman before the Rising Sun 1818

 

Col. MacGregor: ‘It’s Time to Slash Our Defense Budget’ (21CW)
Tucker Carlson Steamrolls Ukraine Propaganda In New Show (RT)
Minsk Agreements Allowed Me To Arm Ukraine – Poroshenko (RT)
There Never Was an Offramp in Ukraine (Luongo)
Ukraine Considered Dirty Bomb Attack Against Russia – FSB (RT)
Russia Reveals Battle Casualties (RT)
Russia Regrets Its Kakhovka Warnings Were Not Heard – Nebenzia (Sp.)
Hungary Decries ‘Sanctions Hysteria’ (RT)
Arms Sent To Ukraine Could End Up In Other Parts Of The World – Hungary (RT)
US Knew Ukraine Planned On Bombing Nord Stream – WaPo (RT)
People Ask Me ‘Where Is Ukraine’ – German FM Baerbock (RT)
First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were (Lawrence)
What’s Next (James Howard Kunstler)
Scandal Bigger Than Biden Bribery: FBI Election Interference (Fed)

 

 

@CheburekiMan : Restoring water flow to the North Crimean Canal was top priority for Russia, the very first act of the SMO. Before Kiev shut off the flow in 2014, the canal was supplying 85% of Crimea’s water. So much depended on it, from crops to industry to drinking water, that’s how important it is. Now the pro-Ukraine bleating sheep want people to believe that Russia would wreck the dam, empty the reservoir and cause serious harm to its own people by running the canal dry. It’s so bonkers that one has to seriously consider such ideas are the result of brain damage, or perhaps fetal alcohol syndrome.

 

 

Right before the attack, Ukraine filled up the lake..

 

 

Hageman

 

 

 

 

Rowan

 

 

 

 

Prigozhin

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1666257106922803200
Mel Gibson Funds Tim Ballard Child Rescue Missions!

 

 

 

 

“..the US is not even remotely equipped to fight a modern war of combined forces – and will not be for many years..”

Col. MacGregor: ‘It’s Time to Slash Our Defense Budget’ (21CW)

The US military is losing in Ukraine, and will continue to loose – despite blowing $1 trillion per year on so-called ‘defense.’ In this recent episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, guest Col. Douglas Macgregor explains why America’s bloated and ever-expanding Pentagon military budget. As it turns out, much of its $1 trillion per annum slush fund is wasted on top-heavy contracts and boondoggle projects which never see the light of day on the battlefield. What NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is now demonstrating as that the US is not even remotely equipped to fight a modern war of combined forces – and will not be for many years (assuming they attempt to revamp their forces to fight a 21st century ground war).

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“Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He’s literally a living saint..”

Tucker Carlson Steamrolls Ukraine Propaganda In New Show (RT)

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has released the first episode of his new series on Twitter, taking Western news agencies to task for one-sided reporting on the conflict in Ukraine and open hostility toward anybody voicing dissenting views. Dubbed ‘Tucker on Twitter,’ the show’s first 10-minute segment was shared on the social media platform on Wednesday night. The clip opened with a monologue on the Ukrainian attack on a major dam in Russia’s Kherson region this week, which Carlson dubbed “an act of terrorism.” “Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more, and for precisely that reason the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it,” he said, going on to observe that a Ukrainian general admitted to planning attacks on the Kakhovka dam facility in comments to the Washington Post last December.

Tucker

While Carlson said he had little doubt that Kiev was behind the strike, he noted that several American media outlets had already suggested that Moscow may have arranged the attack on itself, claiming they view Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as simply “too decent for terrorism.” “Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He’s literally a living saint, a man in whom there is no sin,” he went on, describing the general attitude within the mainstream press. The pundit drew comparisons to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to carry natural gas from Russia into Germany.


Though Carlson argued it was “obvious” that Ukraine had carried out the sabotage, he said US media outlets had little interest in investigating, helping to make Americans among “the least informed people in the world.” “Not only are the media not interested in any of this, they are actively hostile to anybody who is. In journalism, curiosity is the gravest crime,” he continued, adding that while media outlets lie, “mostly they just ignore the stories that matter.” Carlson parted ways with Fox in April, a major shake-up for the media giant given the prominence of his prime-time program, ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ He later announced that would move his content to Twitter, where he has released other stand-alone segments similar to his former show. In his signoff for Wednesday’s episode, the host voiced hopes that Twitter would be a venue with “no gatekeepers,” but vowed to leave the site should that turn out to be false.

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A proud man.

Minsk Agreements Allowed Me To Arm Ukraine – Poroshenko (RT)

Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has boasted about his role in rebuilding his country’s military under the cover of the Minsk agreements. The documents were supposed to reconcile Kiev with eastern regions that had not endorsed the 2014 Western-backed coup. “Do you know how many battalions I had north of Kiev when I became president? Zero. What about the state budget? Below zero. What about working tanks? A pittance,” the former leader said, describing the state of Ukraine nine years ago in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper published on Monday. Poroshenko took office in June 2014, as the post-coup Ukrainian government was attempting to quash a rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions with military force. The two Minsk agreements were adopted with Poroshenko at the helm.

They were supposed to de-escalate the conflict and reintegrate the regions into Ukrainian political systems under wide autonomy, but Kiev stonewalled their implementation. Instead, Poroshenko told the newspaper that his government had opted for a military buildup with the help of foreign sponsors. “Immediately after the signing, I invited NATO instructors, bought weapons and vehicles. During my presidency we built an army,” he declared. The former president insisted that this had allowed Ukraine to prepare for the current confrontation with Russia. Moscow cited Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk accords, its continued attacks on Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as NATO’s encroachment into Ukraine as key reasons for the launch of its military operation in February 2022. Russian officials have claimed that the Minsk agreements, which were mediated by France and Germany, were negotiated in bad faith.

Former French President Francois Hollande and ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel have since confirmed that the deals were intended to buy time for Kiev. Poroshenko suffered a landslide defeat to Vladimir Zelensky, the current president, in the 2019 election. The comedian-turned-politician promised to reverse his predecessor’s bellicose policies and reconcile with Donbass. However, Zelensky performed a U-turn after coming to power, as extremist nationalist forces objected to any attempts to negotiate. In the interview, Poroshenko endorsed the opinion of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who argued last week that Minsk and Moscow should have “resolved” the Ukrainian situation in 2014-2015, instead of pursuing diplomacy. Poroshenko implied that his government would have been toppled in that scenario.

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“What do you call a hundred thousand dead Slavs fighting over swampland? A good start.”

“Waffle House Waitress Nikki Haley is out repeating the lie that Russia will take all of Poland and the Baltics if he wins on CNN. It doesn’t matter that she’ll get 1% of the primary vote, her job is to reinforce the narrative..”

There Never Was an Offramp in Ukraine (Luongo)

Before the war officially started who blew up power stations denying Crimea power in the fall of 2015, creating blackouts and real civilian hardship? Who is on record saying that the Minsk Agreements were simply a time-buying exercise to arm Ukraine and freeze Russia for the war we have today? Who staged a terrorist attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge? Who has tested the waters on attacking the dam? Whose leadership continues to go around the world desperately trying to convince rational people that this irrational ethnic war between tribes of Slavs is a fight for the future of western civilization? Who intentionally helped stoke simmering hatred of all things Russian across the entirety of Eastern Europe to push the world to this moment? In short, who armed Ukraine while never once acting with one ounce of humility or basic human decency to find a solution that didn’t involve thousands of dead Slavs?

The answer is the same people accusing Russia today of blowing up a dam that severely weakens their strategic position in southern Ukraine. [..] It’s the same pattern as Nordstream, the chemical attacks in Ghouta and Khan Sheykoun, MH-17 and a host of other attacks on civilians over the past decade since Putin helped thwart Obama’s “Coalition of the willing” to take out Assad in 2013 following Ghouta. Everything in Ukraine is downstream (all puns intended) of that. Everything. It’s all one big long policy decision after another. In this respect Ukraine has been a series of moves on a chess board leading to a particular outcome. And that outcome will be a full-fledged war between NATO and Russia over Ukraine. It’s what everyone in power actually wants, even when they mouth words to the contrary. EU officials like Michel, EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and now presidential candidates in the US say the same thing.

There can be no victory for Russia in Ukraine. It would be the end of the West. Waffle House Waitress Nikki Haley is out repeating the lie that Russia will take all of Poland and the Baltics if he wins on CNN. It doesn’t matter that she’ll get 1% of the primary vote, her job is to reinforce the narrative. We’ve all been waiting for the next big ‘disaster’ to up the ante in Ukraine. It’s been too quiet for too long. Now with the fighting intensifying along multiple fronts, this move is it. So, with it done what does it mean? The most obvious is that this materially weakens Russia’s position in Kherson and then Crimea. It follows that this is just the prelude to the long-expected full on attack on Crimea.

It could be some weird statement by the Ukrainians that they are looking for an offramp by drawing an impassable barrier between their territory and Russia’s but I’ll need to see a lot more evidence of that before I can even contemplate it. Because Occam’s razor reminds us of the intense need to take not only Ukraine to the next level but the entire Davos Great Reset agenda there as well. For more than a year the West, primarily the US with a lot of British assistance, have tried to craft a humanitarian crisis narrative around Russia to justify a wider war. This is just the latest example of their handiwork The Ukrainians want this to elicit sympathy from gaslit morons with Ukraine flags in the Twitter name. The Brits need this because their centuries-long feud with Russia simply cannot end with a whimper in Ukraine.

The US thinks they need this because of the ridiculous Great Powers mind virus unleashed on us by our colonial “betters.”Davos needs this because you can’t roll the world up into your total control if there are any great nations left. When viewed through the lens of the power-mongers who unleashed this war I leave you with one last question. What do you call a hundred thousand dead Slavs fighting over swampland? A good start.

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“..Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) has a special branch operating light aircraft, which are intended to fly undetected at low altitudes..”

Ukraine Considered Dirty Bomb Attack Against Russia – FSB (RT)

Ukrainian military intelligence considered detonating a “dirty bomb” on Russian territory, the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow has claimed. Preparations for the “terrorist attack” were revealed during an investigation into Kiev’s use of light planes for clandestine missions against its neighbor, the agency said. According to an FSB statement released on Tuesday, Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) has a special branch operating light aircraft, which are intended to fly undetected at low altitudes. The planes can smuggle supplies to saboteurs or conduct surprise bombing sorties, the FSB claimed.

The Russian agency released footage of an interview with an alleged Ukrainian pilot who was intercepted while flying one such mission. Identified as Dmitry Shimansky, he was detained in May in Tula Region some 200km south of Moscow, when his plane landed to deliver drone parts and explosives for a planned attack on a Russian military airfield. The pilot claimed that the GUR leadership had considered using the same tactics to prepare a dirty bomb attack in Russia. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive device covered with radioactive material, which contaminates a large area around it after detonating.

The FSB also published an interrogation video of another apparent Ukrainian captive, a military pilot named Aleksandr Morozov, who said he was arrested after being forced to land when his small plane was damaged during a secret mission in Russia. His task was to bomb a fuel depot in Bryansk Region bordering Ukraine, he explained. The incident was initially reported in April. The Russian government has accused Ukraine of launching a series of sabotage operations on its soil, including two separate kamikaze drone strikes in Moscow. The first attack last month targeted the Kremlin, while the other resulted in three drones hitting residential buildings in and around the Russian capital on Monday last week. The incident prompted a retaliatory strike on the GUR’s headquarters in Kiev.

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“The losses of Ukraine’s armed forces since June 4 include 3,715 personnel [..] the Russian military suffered 71 dead, 210 wounded..”

Russia Reveals Battle Casualties (RT)

Ukrainian forces lost over 3,700 men and more than 50 tanks in a futile attempt to break through on several fronts, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday. He also revealed Russian casualties during the three days of heavy fighting. “Over a three-day period, the Ukrainian regime began the long-promised offensive on multiple sections of the front, concentrating a large amount of men and materiel for that purpose,” Shoigu said in a video address. The losses of Ukraine’s armed forces since June 4 include 3,715 personnel, 52 tanks, 207 armored vehicles, 134 cars, five airplanes, two helicopters, 48 field artillery pieces and 53 drones, Shoigu said in a video message.
“Unfortunately, this was not without casualties of our own,” the defense minister added.

While defeating the adversary’s attempt to advance, the Russian military suffered 71 dead, 210 wounded, and the destruction of 15 tanks, nine armored vehicles, two cars and nine artillery pieces, according to Shoigu. The heaviest fighting took place Monday, with five Ukrainian brigades attacking on seven sections of the frontline. In these clashes, the Ukrainians suffered more than 1,600 casualties and the loss of 136 vehicles, 79 of which were of foreign origin, Shoigu explained. Of the 28 destroyed tanks, eight were German-made ‘Leopards’ and three more the French wheeled AMX-10. Ukraine “suffered significant and incomparable losses” and did not achieve any of its objectives, the Russian defense minister noted.Shoigu accused the Ukrainian government of destroying the Kakhovka dam in order to cover its flank along the Dnieper River and prevent a Russian advance, while freeing up troops from that part of the front to redeploy in order to make up the losses elsewhere.

As proof that Ukraine was behind what he called a terrorist act, Shoigu noted that the Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric plant – under Ukrainian control, further up the river – significantly increased the water flow and contributed to the flooding. Kiev has blamed Moscow and denied any responsibility for the disaster. Shoigu seldom comments on the course of operations personally, usually leaving the combat reports to the department spokesman, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov. Meanwhile, the Uk rainian defense ministry has urged everyone to keep quiet. Fighting continued on Tuesday, with the Ukrainian forces suffering 260 more casualties, five tanks, four armored vehicles, and nine artillery pieces – including a French Cesar and an American M777 – the Russian Defense Ministry said in an evening update.

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“At the end of October 2022, we circulated an official document of the UN Security Council, a note from the permanent mission on the Kiev regime’s plans to destroy the Kakhovka HPP..”

Russia Regrets Its Kakhovka Warnings Were Not Heard – Nebenzia (Sp.)

Russia regrets that the international community did not hear its warnings last October about the potential threat that the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and dam would pose, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday. “We have warned the international community and UN leadership about this threat,” Nebenzia said during a UN Security Council meeting, in reference to an October 2022 letter that stated Ukrainian forces were planning on destroying the dam through sea mines or a missile strike. “At the end of October 2022, we circulated an official document of the UN Security Council, a note from the permanent mission on the Kiev regime’s plans to destroy the Kakhovka HPP [hydroelectric power plant].

We regret that our calls to the secretary-general to do everything possible to prevent this horrifying crime were not duly heeded.” The letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres detailed Russian military had registered enemy airstrikes targeting the power station’s locks, with the intention of flooding the area. The correspondence had urged Guterres to “do everything” he could in order to avoid the incident. Nebenzia also condemned the behavior of the UN Secretariat for its ‘politicized’ statements and for not condemning Kiev over the attack. “We are deeply bewildered that the UN Secretariat repeatedly fails to condemn the attacks perpetrated by the Kiev regime citing insufficient information,” he told the Security Council.

The UN envoy emphasized that statements blaming Russia for the incident use the same flawed logic as claims that Moscow played a role in the Nord Stream destruction. “Such conclusions reek of schizophrenia,” he said, underscoring the danger posed by such a narrative. Nebenzia took the opportunity to further point out that Kiev had considered undertaking such an operation as far back as last year, a plan reported on by US media in December. The 2022 report detailed that Ukrainian military conducted test strikes on one of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s floodgates. At the time, officials admitted the test was a success but that it would be considered as a “last resort.”

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“..there are some European leaders who suffer from an ever-increasing war psychosis..”

Hungary Decries ‘Sanctions Hysteria’ (RT)

Europe finds itself in the throes of the most severe crisis since WWII, partly due to its leaders’ reliance on economic sanctions to punish Russia over Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday. He said that those measures have instead backfired on the continent. Speaking at the Budapest Peace Forum, the minister said that the Ukraine conflict has brought upon Europe the most serious security and economic challenge in the last 80 years, coupled with enormous risks for further escalation. Without naming any names, Szijjarto said that “there are some European leaders who suffer from an ever-increasing war psychosis” and added that Europeans were paying the price for the conflict. “The war is taking place here, European people are dying, and the effects of the war are most severe in Europe.”

Szijjarto said that the EU had plunged into “sanctions hysteria” and allowed the US to goad it into a race revolving around which European country would deliver more weapons to Ukraine. He stated that the EU’s sanctions against Moscow had neither ended the fighting in Ukraine, nor brought Russia to its knees. “One year, three months, two weeks after the outbreak of the war, while debating the eleventh package of sanctions, I think it is clear to everyone that the two objectives associated with the imposition of sanctions have failed, both of them,” he said. At the same time, “the European economy has suffered more damage,” the minister stressed, pointing out that the bloc’s competitiveness had “plummeted” while European consumers have to pay much more for energy than Americans or Chinese.

“That is why we demand an immediate ceasefire, we demand that peace negotiations begin, which at least offers a hope that a sustainable, long-term security-giving peace will be established in our region,” he said. Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, Hungary has repeatedly called for peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, offering to act as a mediator. While decrying sanctions on Russia as counterproductive, Budapest has likewise refused to send weapons to Ukraine and banned their transit via Hungarian territory.

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“..the country has been “the first to be exposed to the danger of escalation” given its proximity to Ukraine, with which it shares a border.”

Arms Sent To Ukraine Could End Up In Other Parts Of The World – Hungary (RT)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned that the vast quantities of foreign arms sent to Ukraine will help to ignite chaos elsewhere in the world after the conflict with Russia ends, voicing fears of new crises in “unstable regions.” Delivering the keynote address at the Budapest Peace Forum on Tuesday, Szijjarto outlined the government’s stance toward the ongoing conflict, saying it will have broader consequences beyond Ukraine’s borders. “There are many regions of the world where even a small part of the weapons sent to Ukraine could lead to serious instability. Violence and terror may increase in the already unstable regions, which could lead to another wave of migration,” he said. “What guarantee is there that the weapons delivered to Ukraine will not be transferred to other countries?”

The official went on to argue that only an end to the fighting could guarantee Hungary’s security, pointing out that the country has been “the first to be exposed to the danger of escalation” given its proximity to Ukraine, with which it shares a border. “This is why we demand an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations, at least giving hope that a sustainable, long-term peace will be established in the region,” Szijjarto continued. He added that Hungary views the conflict “completely differently” from many of its Western allies, suggesting some partners have little interest in ending the bloodshed. While the FM maintained that there is a “global pro-peace majority” in favor of a ceasefire deal, he said that camp is under “a lot of pressure from the war supporters,” which include Western officials, media outlets and NGOs.

Szijjarto also denounced the “sanctions hysteria” overcoming many European Union members, but said the penalties have done nothing to end the fighting in Ukraine and failed to wreck Russia’s economy as intended. Instead, he claimed the EU has sustained “more damage” from its own measures, deeming the campaign a failure. The diplomat has previously sounded alarms about the lack of oversight for the billions of dollars in Western weapons saturating Ukraine, noting that such arms may someday appear in Africa and create “serious security risks” for the continent. Budapest has resisted pressure to supply lethal weaponry to Kiev since the conflict with Moscow erupted in February 2022, with the country’s parliament even passing a law to prohibit such arms transfers last year. It has also largely bucked the US-led sanctions spree on Russia, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban among the most vocal critics of the policy in the EU.

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Yeah yeah. We’re not buying. Curious timing too: the day after the dam, let’s talk pipelines.

US Knew Ukraine Planned On Bombing Nord Stream – WaPo (RT)

American spies knew for months that Ukrainian state operatives planned on destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing leaked Pentagon documents. While the report implicates Kiev in the act of sabotage, it does not disprove the theory – put forward by journalist Seymour Hersh – that the US took out the pipelines. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were destroyed in a series of near-simultaneous explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm in September. The blasts severed a key conduit for Russian natural gas to Europe, effectively removing the possibility of European countries lifting their sanctions on Moscow and restarting gas purchases.

Three months earlier, the Post reported, “the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces,” General Valery Zaluzhny. The CIA learned of the plot from an unnamed European intelligence agency with an agent in Ukraine, the newspaper claimed, citing Pentagon documents shared on a Discord server in February by a US Air National Guard member. Ukrainian officials, who have previously claimed that Russia destroyed its own pipeline, did not respond to the Washington Post’s request for comment. The CIA likewise remained silent, and the White House refused to answer when asked “whether US officials tried to stop the mission from proceeding.”

The story is similar to earlier reporting by the New York Times, which claimed in March that a “pro-Ukrainian group” took out the gas lines, and by Germany’s Der Spiegel, which claimed that the group used a rented yacht to transport explosives to the blast site. These theories have been contradicted by American reporter Seymour Hersh, who claimed in February that the Biden administration ordered the CIA to bomb the conduits with the help of the Norwegian Navy. The rented yacht story, Hersh said afterwards, was planted in the US and German media as a red herring by the CIA and its German counterpart, the BND.

The yacht appears again in the Washington Post’s latest report, only in this telling, the would-be bombers planned on renting it from a port in a different European country. The Post’s report does not offer any evidence exculpating the US from eventually carrying out the bombing. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions. Prior to the publication of Hersh’s report, Putin blamed the explosions on “the Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK transatlantic alliance. The Russian president argued that the US in particular benefited from the attack due to its position as a competing gas supplier to Europe.

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“Firstly, ‘Where were you when we needed you?’ And also, ‘Where is the Ukraine actually?’”

People Ask Me ‘Where Is Ukraine’ – German FM Baerbock (RT)

Many nations across the world do not share the West’s assessment of the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock admitted on Tuesday. According to the minister, the conflict has garnered less interest in many parts of the world and she has even been asked where Ukraine is located on her diplomatic trips. Instead of focusing on Ukraine, people are blaming Western nations for abandoning them in their own hours of need and accusing the West of caring little about the rest of the world, she said. “I have heard [this] all over the world: Firstly, ‘Where were you when we needed you?’ And also, ‘Where is the Ukraine actually?’” the minister told an event hosted by the private Brazilian university Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Sao Paulo.

People in Latin America and elsewhere “perceive the threat of this war differently than we do in Europe,” Baerbock said. Ordinary citizens in Brazil believe the price of “rice and beans… in the supermarket this week is more important than what happens in a country that is 11,000 kilometers away,” Baerbock added. She then claimed that it was the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev that is “driving up the prices of food around the world” and urged Brazilians to help in doing “everything we can to ensure that there is finally peace in Ukraine again.” Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office in January, has repeatedly called for peace between Russia and Ukraine. He has insisted the two nations need a mediator to facilitate peace talks. He also presented a vision of an international “peace club” aimed at resolving the conflict during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in March.

Lula has also been critical of the approach the West took by providing weapons to Kiev. The US and its allies “had the option not to enter the war the way they did,” he said in April, adding that Washington and Brussels rushed to support one side of the conflict, “without spending time trying to negotiate.” Kiev and its Western backers have rejected several peace initiatives floated by other nations, including Mexico, China and, most recently, Indonesia. Last week, Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto suggested a plan involving a demilitarized zone along the existing contact line between the Russian and Ukrainian troops, monitored by UN peacekeepers. He also proposed holding UN-sponsored referendums to determine the future of disputed territories. Ukraine immediately branded Jakarta’s plan a “surrender” proposal that it said would only benefit Moscow. Russia has maintained that it welcomes all initiatives aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine.

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“..because they are proud of themselves, and these are the kinds of things proud people wear. I was just wearing mine the other day.”

Russia: dude.. they’re literally nazis
American Liberals: no they arent
Ukraine: yes we are
American Liberals: stop reinforcing Russian propaganda

First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were (Lawrence)

And now we have the case of Thomas Gibbons–Neff, a square-jawed former Marine covering the Ukraine war for The Times—strictly to the extent the Kyiv regime permits him to do so, as he explains with admirable honesty. This guy is serious times 10, he and his newspaper want us to know. Tom’s job this week is to persuade us that all those Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia, idolizing Jew-murdering, Russophobic collaborators with the Third Reich, gathering ritually in Nazi-inspired cabals, marching through Kyiv in Klan-like torch parades are not what you think.

Nah, our Tom tells us. They look like neo–Nazis, they act like neo–Nazis, they dress like neo–Nazis, they profess Fascist and neo–Nazi ideologies, they wage this war with the Wehrmacht’s visceral hatred of Russians—O.K., but whyever would you think they are neo–Nazis? They are just regular guys. They wear the Wolfsangel, the Schwarze sonne, the black sun, the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head—all Nazi symbols—because they are proud of themselves, and these are the kinds of things proud people wear. I was just wearing mine the other day. The slipping and sliding starts early in “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History,” the piece Gibbons–Neff published in Monday’s editions. He begins with three photographs of neo–Nazi Ukrainian soldiers, SS insignia plainly visible, that the Kyiv regime has posted on social media, “then quietly deleted,” since the Russian intervention began last year.

“The photographs, and their deletions,” Gibbons–Neff writes, “highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II.” Complicated relationship with Nazi imagery? Stop right there, Mr. Semper fi. Ukraine’s neo–Nazi problem is not about a few indiscreetly displayed images. Sorry. The Ukrainian army’s “complicated relationship” is with a century of ultra-right ideology drawn from Mussolini’s Fascism and then the German Reich. As is well-known and documented, the neo–Nazis who infest the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU—among many other national institutions—have made idols of such figures as Stepan Bandera, the freakishly murderous nationalist who allied with the Nazi regime during the war.

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“The national transexual struggle-session draws to a close with SecDef Lloyd Austin canceling the upcoming drag shows on our military bases. What else have they got? Slavery reparations?”

What’s Next (James Howard Kunstler)

What’s next? Western Europe, facing its own collapse, will turn on America and refuse to continue pretending it can help out in Ukraine. NATO falls apart. (What to do with those vacant office buildings and idle employees?) Europe will have enough problems with its cratering industries and banking system. It may even be obvious to a few heads-of-state that the best outcome is to simply allow Russia to pacify and demilitarize the age-old borderland. After all, for the rolling decades since World War Two, Ukraine was not a problem for anyone until America made it one. There will be no face-saving for the “Joe Biden” regime, either, which is reaching its own collapse phase. Last week’s face-plant at the Air Force Academy was the harbinger of things-to-come.

Today (Monday), FBI officials must walk over to the House oversight Committee an internal FD-1023 document revealed by a whistleblower to contain allegations of a Biden family $5-million bribery scheme with foreign actors. Of course, the substance of this criminal mischief is not news. What’s news is that the allegations contained in the doc come from a “trusted” confidential human source, meaning that, according to the FBI’s own rules, the allegation should have been dealt with expeditiously. Instead, the Bureau sat on it for three years. The FD-1023 doc is dated 2020, months before that year’s presidential election. The source is also alleged to be from Ukraine. Will committee members be allowed to photo-copy the doc, or transcribe what’s in it? Wouldn’t it be amusing if Committee Chairman James Comer personally walks it over to the Xerox machine?

What would the FBI officials do? Body check him? What if it turns out that the doc is full of redactions — blacked out. Like a big, fat practical joke from FBI Director Christopher Wray. (They’ve done it before.) Remember, Mr. Wray is already under threat of a contempt citation for stalling on this matter. But he’s obviously caught between that old rock and a hard place, since the doc appears to prove that, at least, the FBI has obstructed justice, and of the worst sort, a potential case of presidential treason. Mr. Wray may even be colored as an accomplice in it. Or maybe it will all amount to nothing because all bad deeds go unpunished in the degenerate era that precedes collapse. Even so, it seems the regime is running out of insults to launch against the people who consent to be governed by it.

The national transexual struggle-session draws to a close with SecDef Lloyd Austin canceling the upcoming drag shows on our military bases. What else have they got? Slavery reparations? Rep Cori Bush (D-MO) has introduced a bill to pay $14-Trillion to the descendants of slaves. I’m sure that’ll work, both as a unifying action to bring together the quarrelsome diverse peoples of our land, and as a purely fiscal measure. The fate of the financial system will probably shove all of that aside, anyway. Everybody with more than half a brain is waiting for it to crack up, meaning a generalized vanishing of American wealth as expressed in cratering markets, failing banks, and a broken currency, in some vicious combo. Nothing else, it seems, can quite get the people’s attention.

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“..America can survive select injustices, but it cannot withstand a corrupt bureaucracy that obstructs justice and interferes in elections.”

Scandal Bigger Than Biden Bribery: FBI Election Interference (Fed)

The confidential human source (CHS) behind the detailed allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions was reportedly “highly credible” and used by the FBI in multiple criminal investigations dating back to the Obama administration. [..] Friday’s revelation that the CHS was “highly credible” and had served as a source in multiple prior criminal investigations — including ones run under the Obama-Biden administration — proves Grassley is properly focused on the FBI. Yes, the CHS’s allegations offer more evidence of a Biden family pay-to-play scandal, and unraveling any criminal conduct by the Biden family remains important. But more significant to the future of our country is uncovering government actors responsible for violating the rule of law: America can survive select injustices, but it cannot withstand a corrupt bureaucracy that obstructs justice and interferes in elections.

Yet that is precisely what occurred, according to the whistleblower. He claimed that “in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters’ team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” The whistleblower further alleged that the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access. Now knowing the CHS behind the FD-1023 was not just “trusted,” as Grassley had previously indicated, but “highly credible,” and relied upon in multiple criminal cases dating back to the last time Biden worked for the executive branch, makes the whistleblower’s accusations even more damning because those additional facts mean the agents had reason to believe the buried accusations were true.

Not only does this evidence suggest FBI headquarters obstructed justice, but the date of the CHS’s report indicates those responsible for misbranding the intel as disinformation sought to interfere in the 2020 election. As Grassley’s colleague in the House, James Comer, revealed, the CHS report was dated June 30, 2020, and while the allegations against candidate Biden came from a “highly credible” CHS, the FBI closed them. According to the whistleblower, FBI headquarters closed out the source even though some of the allegations had already been verified and other details could have been verified. In contrast, when the bureau received a vague tip from an Australian diplomat of unknown veracity that a low-level Trump volunteer had claimed the Russians possessed dirt on Hillary Clinton, within days FBI headquarters opened an investigation into the Trump campaign.

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Fearless
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665790589940666368

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bald eagle

 

 

Kingfisher

 

 

Moonwalk
https://twitter.com/i/status/1666154484773314560

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 172023
 
 February 17, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Tomb of the diver, Paestum c480 BCE

 

Seymour Hersh Calls Pipeline Sabotage ‘Dumbest’ US Act In Years (RT)
The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline. Interview with Seymour Hersh (GR)
US Presidents Renege on Agreements with Russia (Parsons)
Ukraine Conflict Will Likely Have No Military Winner – Milley (RT)
Russia Has Lost ‘Strategically, Operationally And Tactically’ – Milley (G.)
The Horrifying Endgame in Ukraine (Rickards)
Nuland Outlines US Goals In Ukraine (RT)
Beijing Challenges Western Press On Nord Stream Blasts (RT)
The West Has Long Planned A Proxy War With Russia In Ukraine (Sukharevskaya)
Russia Acted Out Of Necessity To Implement Minsk Accords – Kremlin (TASS)
Implications of US Destruction of Nordstream 2 Pipeline (Fuller)
Russian Diplomats Issue Dire Warnings that War with US Is Close (LI)
Bombshell New Emails Unsealed Between Epstein and JP Morgan Executive (TP)
NFL Players Association Urged to Screen for Vaccine Side Effects (ET)

 

 

 

 

Ukraine’s new troops
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626469724807696384

 

 

 

 

Douglas Macgregor – The Russian Onslaught

 

 

 

 

East Palestine water

 

 

 

 

Bulgaria

 

 

 

 

Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1620598762216517632

 

 

2019 Zel

 

 

 

 

“What [Biden] did is he said, ‘I’m in a big war with Ukraine. It’s not looking good. I want to be sure I get German and West European support,’”

Seymour Hersh Calls Pipeline Sabotage ‘Dumbest’ US Act In Years (RT)

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has slammed Washington’s alleged involvement in bombing the Nord Stream gas lines as one of the “dumbest” decisions taken in years, warning that the move will have “horrific” consequences for Europeans and further undercut the already “supremely useless” NATO alliance. Speaking to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman for an interview on Wednesday, Hersh outlined his recent report on the destruction of the pipelines last year, which found that the US played a key role in planting and detonating explosives on sections of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea. “I think the consequences politically for us are enormous,” he said, adding that the long-term effects for Europe would be “horrific” and “cut into the notion that they can depend totally on America, even in a crisis.”

“I think that this has probably been, in the view of some of the people who did it, one of the dumbest things the American government has done in years – and we’ve had four years of Trump.” Hersh argued that US officials have long seen cheap energy alternatives for Europe as a “threat,” noting that Washington has “always wanted to isolate Russia” to prevent oil and gas sales to the EU. He said the Joe Biden administration feared Europe would “walk away” from the conflict in Ukraine and felt the need to pressure allies to stay the course. “What [Biden] did is he said, ‘I’m in a big war with Ukraine. It’s not looking good. I want to be sure I get German and West European support,’” Hersh continued. He added that the president did not want Berlin to reverse course and reopen the Nord Stream lines, which had been under sanctions, “so he took away that option,” effectively telling his European partners “You’re second rate.”

“I know people that are paying five times as much now for electricity. People are paying three or four times more for gas. There’s not enough of it. It’s very expensive,” he said, arguing that Europe is now forced to obtain energy from other sources than Russia, including the United States itself. “And I think it’s going to undercut NATO, which I always found to be supremely useless,” he added. While the Biden administration has vocally denied Hersh’s report, with State Department spokesperson Ned Price calling it “utter and complete nonsense,” the journalist has stuck by his unnamed source, insisting the information relayed to him was accurate. He told Democracy Now! that he would continue to report on the issue in the future, saying there are “still things I need to write about.”

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“I can tell you that the people involved in the operation saw the president as choosing to keep Germany cold for his short-range political goals, and that horrified them.”

The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline. Interview with Seymour Hersh (GR)

Joe Biden decided not to blow them up. It was in early June, five months into the war, but then, in September, he decided to do it. I’ll tell you something. The operational people, the people who do kinetic things for the United States, they do what the president says, and they initially thought this was a useful weapon that he could use in negotiations. But at some point, once the Russians went in, and then when the operation was done, this became increasingly odious to the people who did it. These are well-trained people; they are in the highest level of secret intelligence agencies. They turned on the project. They thought this was an insane thing to do. And within a week, or three or four days after the bombing, after they did what they were ordered to, there was a lot of anger and hostility. This is obviously reflected in the fact that I’m learning so much about it.And I’ll tell you something else. The people in America and Europe who build pipelines know what happened. I’m telling you something important. The people who own companies that build pipelines know the story. I didn’t get the story from them but I learned quickly they know.
.
[..] The secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, said a few days after the pipeline was blown up, at a news conference, that a major economic and almost military force was taken away from Vladimir Putin. He said this was a tremendous opportunity, as Russia could no longer weaponize the pipelines — meaning that it was not able to force Western Europe not to support the United States in the war. The fear was that Western Europe would not go along any longer in the war. I think that the reason they decided to do it then was that the war wasn’t going well for the West, and they were afraid with winter coming. The Nord Stream 2 has been sanctioned by Germany, and the United States was afraid that Germany would lift the sanctions because of a bad winter.
.
FABIAN SCHEIDLER: According to you, what were the motives when you look behind the scenes? The US government was opposed to the pipeline for many reasons. Some say they were opposed to it because they wanted to weaken Russia, to weaken the ties between Russia and Western Europe, Germany especially. But maybe also to weaken the German economy, which, after all, is a competitor to the US economy. With the high gas prices, enterprises have started to move to the United States. So what’s your sense of the motives of the US government, if they blew up the pipeline?
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SEYMOUR HERSH: I don’t think they thought it through. I know this sounds strange. I don’t think that Blinken and some others in the administration are deep thinkers. There certainly are people in the American economy who like the idea of us being more competitive. We’re selling LNG, liquefied gas, at extremely big profits; we’re making a lot of money on it. I’m sure there were some people thinking, boy, this is going to be a long-time boost for the American economy. But in that White House, I think the obsession was always reelection, and they wanted to win the war, they wanted to get a victory, they want Ukraine to somehow magically win. There could be some people who think maybe it’ll be better for our economy if the German economy is weak, but that’s crazy thinking. I think, basically, that we’ve bitten deep into something that’s not going to work. The war is not going to turn out well for this government.

[..] What I know is there’s no way this war is going to turn out the way we want, and I don’t know what we’re going to do as we go further down the line. It scares me if the president was willing to do this.And the people who did this mission believed that the president did realize what he was doing to the people of Germany, that he was punishing them for a war that wasn’t going well. And in the long run, this is going to be very detrimental not only to his reputation as the president but politically too. It’s going to be a stigma for America.So what you have is a White House that thought it may have a losing card: Germany and Western Europe may stop giving the arms we want and the German chancellor could turn the pipeline on — that was always a fear. I would be asking a lot of questions to Chancellor Scholz. I would ask him what he learned in February when he was with the president. The operation was a big secret, and the president wasn’t supposed to tell anybody about this capability. But he does talk. He says things that he doesn’t want to.

[..] The point is that Biden chose to keep Germany cold this winter. The president of the United States would rather see Germany cold [because of energy shortages] than Germany possibly not supportive in the Ukraine war, and that, to me, is going to be a devastating thing for this White House. For me, and I think also for the people on the mission, it was appalling. [..] I can tell you that the people involved in the operation saw the president as choosing to keep Germany cold for his short-range political goals, and that horrified them. I’m talking about American people that are intensely loyal to the United States. In the CIA, it’s understood that, as I put it in my article, they work for the Crown, they don’t work for the Constitution.

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“..what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth..”

US Presidents Renege on Agreements with Russia (Parsons)

A week after Sy Hersh’s expose on the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, there is still no word that pretend President Biden who denies any knowledge or involvement in causing an Act of War in the Baltic Sea has yet to offer an explanation to the American public or reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin – but what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth. Even though the balloon distraction consumes the American mainstream media with the anonymous buoyant inflatable nonsense of a psyop as if to avoid the inescapable moment of truth – which will come inevitably. In any case, a good guess is that the Russians are not amused by whatever game the Biden Administration has conjured up to deflect attention from the reality of a world level Act of War crisis.


While the media remains aflutter with the guessing-game possibilities, TPTB appear confident that because Russia has been restrained and prudent in its reactions during its special military operation; including the unrelenting NATO lies but especially to the inhumanity of the Ukraine Nazi’s. There is a general refusal on the part of the Americans to believe that The Bear would ever retaliate, that they could never be pushed so far until there was nowhere else to go. Perhaps as the European mainland flounders in an energy and economic crisis of its own making, they are experiencing a resurgence of lost sovereignty and awareness of their loss of independence at the hands of the US. As the US and rest of the world await Russia’s response to the Biden Administration’s denial, legendary professor, historian, philosopher and political analyst emeritus Noam Chomsky has reminded us of the reckless and provocative impact of the US withdrawal of arms control agreements on Russia’s well-defined borders and legitimate security interests.

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Translation: we are losing.

Ukraine Conflict Will Likely Have No Military Winner – Milley (RT)

The Ukraine conflict can only end through a negotiated peace deal because neither side is likely to achieve its goals on the battlefield, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday. “It will be almost impossible for the Russians to achieve their political objectives by military means,” Milley claimed without providing specific reasons for his stance. “It is unlikely that Russia is going to overrun Ukraine. It’s just not going to happen.” He added that it also would be “very, very difficult for Ukraine this year to kick the Russians out of every inch” of the territory that Moscow’s forces have already captured.

America’s top-ranking military officer made his comments after traveling to Brussels earlier this week to coordinate efforts with NATO allies on shoring up Ukraine’s firepower for a planned spring counter-offensive. Kiev is burning through weaponry at a rate “many times higher” than its Western allies can produce it, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Monday. Milley said the ammunition strain has forced the Pentagon to review its weapons inventories and contemplate increases in spending. US officials are re-examining their assumptions about supply needs after decades of focusing on counterterrorism missions and unconventional warfare.

“One of the lessons of this war is the very high consumption rates of conventional munitions, and we are re-examining our own stockages and our own plans to make sure that we got it right,” Milley told FT. “We’re trying to do the analysis so that we can then estimate what we think the true requirement would be, and then we have to put that in the budget. Ammunition is very expensive.” The Pentagon’s current annual budget stands at $817 billion, exceeding the combined total for the rest of the world’s ten largest military spenders combined. Washington has already allocated more than $110 billion in aid for Ukraine since Russia’s military operation began last February.

Republican lawmakers, such as Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Andy Biggs of Arizona, have criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for severely depleting US weapons stockpiles to arm Ukraine. Earlier this week, Milley told reporters in Brussels that Russia has already lost. “They’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically, and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.” Retired US Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor, a former Pentagon adviser, said such claims have eroded the Biden administration’s credibility. “General Milley has made it very clear that he’s aligned with the left, he is part of this administration, he’s going to say whatever they want him to say.”

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Translation: there will be no winner, but Russia lost.

Russia Has Lost ‘Strategically, Operationally And Tactically’ – Milley (G.)

General Mark Milley, chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, has said Russia has lost “strategically, operationally and tactically” and that they are “paying an enormous price on the battlefield” in Ukraine. Milley, speaking at a joint news conference with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, said President Vladimir Putin believed he could defeat Ukraine quickly when he ordered his troops to invade almost a year ago. [Putin] was wrong. Ukraine remains free. They remain independent. Nato and its coalition has never been stronger. Now, Russia is a global pariah and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost – they’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.

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“It doesn’t really make sense to send tanks to Ukraine unless you send combat aircraft to give them cover.”

The Horrifying Endgame in Ukraine (Rickards)

I’ve written extensively about two facets of the war in Ukraine that you don’t hear from legacy media in the United States or U.K. The first is that Russia is actually winning the war. U.S. outlets such as The New York Times (a channel for the State Department) and The Washington Post (a channel for the CIA) report endlessly about how Russian plans have failed, about how incompetent they are about how the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have pushed back Russians in the Donbass, and how NATO weapons such as U.S. Abrams tanks, U.K. Challenger tanks and German Leopard tanks will turn the tide against Russia soon. This is all nonsense. None of it is true.

First off, the Ukrainian advances that took place in late summer were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly conceded to conserve forces. The Russians were willing to give up the land so that they wouldn’t lose valuable men and materiel. The Russians withdrew to more defensible positions and have been badly mauling Ukrainian attacking forces ever since. Ukraine has wasted incredibly large amounts of men and equipment in these futile and ill-advised attacks. In all, credible reports indicate that AFU casualties are nearing 500,000 and are increasing at an unsustainable rate. On the other hand, reports of 100,000 Russian dead are almost certainly wild exaggerations put out by Ukraine. The BBC attempted to verify these numbers and could only find about 20,000 confirmed Russian dead based on extensive searches on funeral notices, public records, etc.

What about the tanks NATO is supposedly sending? Well, the tanks have not been delivered yet and most won’t be for months or longer. Our own M1 Abrams tanks might not even arrive for a year or more. We actually have to custom build these tanks so that they don’t have the special armor and other advanced systems that our own M1s have. The Pentagon doesn’t want them falling into Russian hands if they’re destroyed or captured. Besides, we’re only sending 31 tanks anyway. When the NATO tanks do arrive, they’ll likely quickly be destroyed by Russian artillery, anti-tank weapons and precision missiles. They’re good tanks, but far from invincible. For decades, the Russians have been developing powerful weapons specifically designed to destroy these NATO tank models. The Russians aren’t particularly worried about them.

Aside from that, tanks rely on effective air cover for protection, which Ukraine lacks. They’ll be sitting ducks on the battlefield. It doesn’t really make sense to send tanks to Ukraine unless you send combat aircraft to give them cover. Meanwhile, Russian forces have nearly encircled the city of Bakhmut, which is a major transportation and logistics hub, with several key roads and rail lines passing through it. It’ll probably fall to the Russians within weeks. Losing Bakhmut will be a major blow to Ukraine, despite claims in the western media that it really isn’t very important. Ukraine’s entire 800-mile defensive line would probably begin to crumble, and they don’t have heavily fortified positions to fall back on. Ukrainian troops, while brave and competent soldiers, are exhausted and running out of supplies as it is.

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“..She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West..”

Nuland Outlines US Goals In Ukraine (RT)

Unless the Crimean peninsula is at the very least “demilitarized” Ukraine won’t feel safe, while the ideal end to the current conflict is with a revolution in Moscow, the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday. Ukrainians “have to get to a map that is more sustainable for them,” Nuland said in a video interview with the Washington think tank Carnegie Endowment. They have “significant chunks of territory they need to be a viable state, before you even get to the question of Crimea, and that’s what they’re focused on now.” The US position is that Ukraine is “owed and due all of their territory within their international borders,” which means Crimea as well, Nuland added.

Assigned to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, after the violent coup in Kiev that Nuland helped “midwife,” according to the infamous phone call intercept. “Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is – at a minimum, at a minimum – demilitarized,” Nuland insisted on Thursday, claiming that Moscow had turned the peninsula into a military base, with command posts, logistics depots and airfields for “Iranian drones.” “Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” she said. Earlier this week, Politico quoted two anonymous officials to imply that Nuland’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had admitted the US was not “actively encouraging” Ukraine to seize Crimea and that any moves on the peninsula would be “Kiev’s decision alone.”

Nuland, however, told Carnegie that the battlefield objectives of Washington and Kiev overlap “in terms of what the Ukrainians want to do on the battlefield, and what we’re enabling them to plan to do.” Asked how she saw the conflict ending, Nuland said the West “must never trust, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, or somebody like him, that this is truly over.” Even if the fighting ends on Ukraine’s terms, there “has to be a long-term plan” to build up Ukraine’s military as a deterrent. She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West.

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“What exactly do they know? Is there anything they are trying to hide? I suppose any truly objective, impartial and professional media will want to seek out the truth..”

Beijing Challenges Western Press On Nord Stream Blasts (RT)

Beijing has mocked mainstream Western media for its apparent reluctance to look into recent allegations by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, that the US was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream undersea pipelines last year. The sabotage of the natural gas routes last September had a major economic and environmental impact and caused global concern over the safety of cross-border infrastructure, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a press briefing on Thursday. “Immediately after the explosions, we saw extensive coverage in US and other Western media with one-sided speculations on who was ‘responsible’ for the sabotage,” he said. “What we see now, however, is that these media, hailed as free, professional and impartial, have fallen silent over Seymour Hersh’s detailed report.”

The veteran investigative journalist reported last week that US President Joe Biden had ordered a secret operation to sabotage the crucial energy link. According to his source, which Hersh did not reveal, the US colluded with Norway to plant explosives under the guise of a NATO naval exercise and detonate it remotely months later. Both nations have denied the allegations. Wang wondered if Western outlets really wanted to know the truth about what happened, suggesting that some may be covering up for the Biden administration. “What exactly do they know? Is there anything they are trying to hide? I suppose any truly objective, impartial and professional media will want to seek out the truth,” the Chinese diplomat said.

Russia, which argued from the outset that the US had most to gain from knocking out the Nord Stream pipelines, expressed similar sentiments. “We consider this incident an act of international terrorism that warrants a comprehensive and independent investigation,” Igor Girenko, the spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington said. He urged Washington to “at least try to prove that they were not involved in the destruction of the gas pipelines.”

Clare Daly

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Olga Sukharevskaya is a former Ukrainian diplomat.

The West Has Long Planned A Proxy War With Russia In Ukraine (Sukharevskaya)

Western ‘aid’ is killing Ukrainians by the thousands. In November 2022, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, estimated that Kiev had lost at least 100,000 servicemen, before deleting her comments after uproar from supporters of Ukraine. Three more months have passed since then. Big expansions to cemeteries have sprouted up all over Ukraine. Trying to make up for losses, the authorities have ordered more mobilization. This process has turned into a hunt, with men being dragged to war by force, as dozens of videos freely available online show. Given equipment losses, it’s likely that attacks on the civilian population of Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, as well as Russia’s border regions, are carried out almost exclusively using Western weapons.

Evidence of this is seen from video footage of destroyed civilian infrastructure in Donbass. American “gifts” in the form of HIMARS strike residential areas in Donetsk and in the deep rear of the Lugansk city of Schastye. The Kalinin hospital in Donetsk and a hospital in Novoaidar, Lugansk, were both destroyed by NATO weapons. And this is only a small portion of the slaughter being committed by Kiev, using Western supplies. According to UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, at least 7,100 civilians have been killed in the course of combat operations since February 2022. “The real numbers are probably much bigger,” Nakamitsu said. Norwegian Chief of Defense Eirik Kristoffersen estimates civilian casualties at 30,000 people.

There is also evidence that some long-range missiles currently publicly only under discussion have already been provided to Kiev. The head of the administration of the Russian part of Zaporozhye Region, Vladimir Rogov, has reported that Ukrainian missiles hit the hotel complex ‘Hunter’s Camp’ in Melitopol, resulting in civilian deaths. However, the city is located more than 100 km from the frontline. The lives of the Ukrainian people have been sacrificed in the interests of a geopolitical confrontation planned by the West. At a meeting of the Council of Europe on January 24, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, “We (the EU) are waging a war against Russia, not against each other.” She was subsequently forced to take her words back, but other Western officials have said the same thing, even if in less straightforward ways.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stressed, “If Putin prevails, it will mean a defeat not only for Ukraine but for all of us.” As for Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, he went so far as to call the defeat of Russia “the Polish and European meaning of life.” Politicians generally tell the truth only after resigning. Statements from former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Francois Hollande have revealed that the 2014 and 2015 Minsk (peace) Agreements were signed only in order to arm Ukraine and buy it time before a full on military confrontation with Russia. In other words, waging war with Russia by proxy through Ukraine has been a meticulously planned strategy, long in the making.

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“The deal outlined moves to declare a ceasefire, withdraw weapons, declare amnesty, restore economic ties and conduct constitutional reform in Ukraine..”

Russia Acted Out Of Necessity To Implement Minsk Accords – Kremlin (TASS)

Russia took into account the need to implement the Minsk Accords and exerted numerous efforts to make sure that the commitments under the deal were implemented by Ukraine, France, and Germany, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. The Russian presidential spokesman responded with a negative reply to a question as to whether Moscow assumed that the deal would not be carried out once the accords were signed. “You know how much effort the Russian side invested into the negotiating track in order to force both the Ukrainian side and Berlin and Paris to go down the path of fulfilling the commitments that the parties had undertaken under the Minsk agreements,” he continued.

According to Peskov, Moscow “exerted a great deal of effort” into the Minsk Accords. He recalled that the talks on the issue involved the personal participation of President Vladimir Putin, ex-Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov and Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak. “Undoubtedly, the main objective was to force Kiev to fulfill its obligations,” Peskov told the news briefing. The Minsk Accords were the cornerstone of the Donbass peace process. The deal outlined moves to declare a ceasefire, withdraw weapons, declare amnesty, restore economic ties and conduct constitutional reform in Ukraine through dialogue with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR), aimed at decentralizing power and providing a special status to certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

However, the negotiation process had actually stalled because of Kiev’s refusal to fulfill the political provisions of the Minsk accords. In particular, Kiev rejected holding any direct dialogue with the DPR and the LPR, opposed the consolidation of the regions’ special status in the constitution, and also demanded that a section of the border with Russia in Donbass be placed under Ukrainian control until the political part of the deal was implemented.

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“These states of the Global South are also developing plans for new international reserve currency designed to undercut the ability of Washington to dictate international policy..”

Implications of US Destruction of Nordstream 2 Pipeline (Fuller)

The stunning recent and detailed reportage of direct American sabotage of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline represents a major geostrategic watershed in two senses: First, the implications of Washington’s act of war with disastrous economic impact upon Europe will not subside easily. But more importantly this event has demonstrated America’s successful cowing of any public commentary on the event — across U.S. media but more so across all European media itself, including in the most economically victimized state —Germany. We observe stunning, nearly inexplicable silence over this major international event. And Russia has gotten the message — American policies and statements have deeply reinforced Russia’s long-standing belief that the West is implacably hostile to any Russian role in the West — going back to the bitter and irrevocable split of Christendom between Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054. That was later followed up by two devastating European invasions of Russia (Napoleon and Hitler).

Growing European trade ties — especially Germany — with Russia since the end of the Cold War have been thrown on the trash heap by NATO expansion east. The hostility of East-West relations has been reinforced and deepened. Washington has no desire to work out a new common-European security policy that includes Russian interests as well. And these U.S. policies have helped ensure that Russia’s future now firmly lies in the East–Vladivostok and with China in a shared rejection of U.S. global hegemony. The rise of a new Great Wall that blocks off Russia from Western Europe is one of the most striking outcomes of this war: European officialdom seems to have cast in its lot, perhaps reluctantly but irrevocably, with the American strategic goals in the world.

Those goals now even speak of creating a new “NATO Pacific” designed to challenge Chinese power economically and strategically in China’s own backyard — at great potential economic cost to Europe. But for all this demonstration of Washington’s hold over Europe, it is also striking to note how the great majority of the world has indeed not gone along with U.S. strategic ambitions to weaken and humble Russia or to impose Washington’s own geopolitical architecture on most of the rest of the world. Broadly speaking Latin America, the Middle East and Africa do not perceive their strategic interests as aligning with Washington’s. Apart from some lip service criticism of Russia, few states including large segments of Asia and India itself have imposed any meaningful sanctions against Russia.

More vividly, we see the emergence of new non-Western alliances such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) with many other major states lining up to include Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. These states of the Global South are also developing plans for new international reserve currency designed to undercut the ability of Washington to dictate international policy through U.S. dollar-based sanctions.

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“If you are dealing with a nuclear power and if you are citing the goal of inflicting defeat to this nuclear power, you should have all the options in mind of our possible response.”

Russian Diplomats Issue Dire Warnings that War with US Is Close (LI)

Starting in 2008, NATO has repeatedly declared its intention to someday allow Ukraine to become a member, again reiterating that pledge at a recent alliance summit. The move would cross the “brightest of all red lines” for Moscow, as was previously noted by then-State Department official and current CIA Director William Burns, who penned a 2008 memo warning of the geopolitical perils of extending membership to Kiev. Still, President Joe Biden has refused to change course, insisting it is up to Ukraine whether it would like to join the US-led military bloc while effectively making Kiev a de facto member in the meantime. In an interview with Newsweek on Tuesday, Russia’s UN envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy argued that the West has not respected Moscow’s core security concerns, and has become directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.

“All the red lines have already been crossed by Western countries. There is already semi-direct involvement of NATO in the conflict because it’s not only weaponry but it’s intelligence,” he said. “It’s the situation when the targets of certain artillery systems, in particular HIMARS, these targets can be hit only with the coordination with Washington.” Last week, the Washington Post reported that Ukraine relies on American intelligence for selecting targets. Since the start of the year, the White House has authorized the shipment of main battle tanks and long-range rockets to Kiev. Additionally, NATO appears to be preparing to send Western-made warplanes to Ukraine. ”It means that NATO is not only providing weapons but also are choosing the targets for Ukrainian strikes,” Polyanskiy continued.

He went on to allege that citizens from NATO countries are already fighting – as well as getting captured and killed – in Ukraine. ”We know this from the people that we capture and from the bodies that we see on the battlefield.” The ambassador said Western weapons would only escalate the conflict, even warning that foreign intervention could eventually trigger a nuclear war. “It’s absolutely clear that any deliveries of weapons to the zone of conflict, of course, is like pouring oil into the fire,” he said, adding “If you are dealing with a nuclear power and if you are citing the goal of inflicting defeat to this nuclear power, you should have all the options in mind of our possible response.”

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Staley’s done. Now for the rest.

Bombshell New Emails Unsealed Between Epstein and JP Morgan Executive (TP)

Newly unsealed documents relating to the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit against JPMorgan begin to paint a larger picture of how the Epstein sex trafficking operation was conducted. Newly unsealed passages of a federal lawsuit have revealed that as far back as 2006, former top executives at JPMorgan privately discussed abuse allegations surrounding the late predator Jeffrey Epstein, and more than 20 of his sex trafficking victims were paid through accounts at the mega bank. “These women were trafficked and abused during different intervals between at least 2003 and July 2019, when Epstein was arrested and jailed, and these women received payments, typically multiple payments, between 2003 and 2013 in excess of $1 million collectively,” a passage states.

“Epstein also withdrew more than $775,000 in cash over that time frame from JP Morgan accounts, especially significant as Epstein was known to pay for “massages,” or sexual encounters, in cash.” Earlier, the allegations, along with some others, were concealed with redactions by the government of the Virgin Islands while submitting its legal action against JP Morgan Chase, citing its involvement in Epstein’s offenses. Late Wednesday, the Virgin Islands unsealed more documents relating to their investigation. The bombshell documents reveal just how involved JP Morgan was with Epstein. Not only did they know what Epstein was up to, but they were complicit. JPMorgan’s then-senior executive Jes Staley had a very close relationship with Epstein, sending him 1,200 emails that suggest he was involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.

“Between 2008 and 2012, Staley exchanged approximately 1,200 emails with Epstein from his JP Morgan email account,” the lawsuit says. “These communications show a close personal relationship and ‘profound’ friendship between the two men and even suggest that Staley may have been involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.” One Staley email was even sent from Epstein’s Little St. James in 2009 when Epstein was in jail in Florida. “So when all hell breaks lo[o]se, and the world is crumbling, I will come here, and be at peace,” the email read. “Presently, I’m in the hot tub with a glass of white wine. This is an amazing place. Truly amazing. Next time, we’re here together. I owe you much. And I deeply appreciate our friendship. I have few so profound.”

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“..a testing and screening program to determine whether players have been adversely affected by the injections and to develop a set of functional medical protocols and treatments in order to address and heal any deleterious effects of the vaccines..”

The players don’t want to be tested, afraid they can’t play.

NFL Players Association Urged to Screen for Vaccine Side Effects (ET)

The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) is being urged to offer players cardiac screening in light of the growing concern over COVID-19 vaccines causing heart inflammation. The Health Freedom Defense Fund urged the association in a recent letter to implement screening because the vaccines can cause myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation. Young males are the most at risk. Most NFL players received a COVID-19 vaccine under pressure from teams and the league. “Safety signals illustrate that the near and long-term health outcomes of the COVID-19 vaccines remain uncertain,” Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the fund, told DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the players association, in the letter.

RFK jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626318214325055490

“A multitude of adverse reactions to these injections, including myocarditis, are wide-ranging and confirmed, and as such, prudence dictates that the NFLPA investigate the extent to which the COVID-19 shots may have resulted in injury, compromised health or death of players,” Manookian said. She pointed out that Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during a Monday Night Football game in January. The reason for the incident remains unknown; Hamlin declined to convey during a recent televised interview what his doctors told him about the incident. Former NFL players also have suffered heart attacks and strokes following vaccination. The NFLPA should introduce “a testing and screening program to determine whether players have been adversely affected by the injections and to develop a set of functional medical protocols and treatments in order to address and heal any deleterious effects of the vaccines,” Manookian said.

[..] Manookian informed the NFLPA that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed a warning regarding myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, on the labels for the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. She also pointed to research papers on post-vaccination myocarditis. Among them were a study by Florida authorities that found a jump in cardiac-related deaths among the vaccinated; a study that found an increased risk of myocarditis and myopericarditis after a second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine and the first and second doses of Moderna’s vaccine, with the highest risk in young males; a reanalysis of the original clinical trials that found a higher number of serious adverse events of special interest among the vaccinated; and experts in Germany reporting, after analyzing autopsies, that some of the deceased likely died from vaccine-induced myocarditis.

“We have a growing body of scientific evidence showing that there is a risk to young males in particular, and many of them have some critical cardiac problems,” Manookian said. The NFLPA did the right thing when it comes to concussions, supporting stronger protections for players, she said. “I think that we should be doing the same thing with respect to these COVID injections and the potential for subclinical cardiac issues,” Manookian said.

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Biden walk

 

 

Salamander
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626276298694828032

 

 


In 1970, students in a fifth-grade class at Hawthorne School in Beverly Hills were assigned to write a letter to someone they admired, asking them “What makes a good citizen?”10yr old Joel Lipton wrote to Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz. Joel got a reply…

 

 

Abandoned ant hill
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626164699191451651

 

 

Cuttlefish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626293722752188419

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 102023
 
 February 10, 2023  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  74 Responses »


René Magritte L’avenir (the future) 1936

 

The “Not-Ultimatum” Revisited (Observer R)
Russia Didn’t Start Hostilities In Ukraine, But Tries To End Them – Putin (TASS)
Ukraine Is Taking Care Of Europe – Zelensky (RT)
Zelensky Takes Credit For Derailing Minsk Agreements (RT)
Zelensky Reveals What He Does To Scholz (RT)
Ukraine’s Entry To NATO Would Spell World War – Hungary (TASS)
Much-Hyped Tanks For Ukraine In Short Supply – WSJ (RT)
UK Not Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine (RT)
Russia-Iran Dump The Dollar And Bust US Sanctions (Escobar)
US Military At European Base Provide GPS-Targeting For Ukrainian Rockets (PM)
EU’s Aid For Ukraine Is Effectively Public Aid For Itself (RMX)
Details Emerge On Chinese ‘Spy Balloon’ – WSJ (RT)
GOP-Led House Panels Shift Gears, Go Full Throttle for Domestic Energy Production (ET)
Sy Hersh and The Way We Live Now (Craig Murray)
Rep. Higgins Tells Twitter Executives to Prepare to be Arrested (TP)

 

 

 

 

Laying the Groundwork For the Loss of Ukraine

 

 

 

 

Hudson

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Ukraine was not actually in charge of its own destiny, but rather, the war was being controlled by the NATO powers..”

The “Not-Ultimatum” Revisited (Observer R)

Slightly over a year ago, in December 2021, Russia published a proposal for setting up a new security architecture for Europe. Russia also warned of unspecified serious consequences if this proposal was not acted upon. The United States and other Western countries either ignored the Russian offer, or more or less laughed at it. Russia wanted the line of NATO forces moved back to where it was when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. This meant getting NATO out of the former Eastern European countries, including Ukraine. The Russian proposal was widely termed the “Not-Ultimatum” for ease of discussion, since the Russians were polite about it, but at the same time threatening action. Analysts were busy trying to figure what exactly Russia might do, and offered many different scenarios.

[..] The proposal by Russia for negotiating a new security architecture for Europe was rejected by the US. That was extremely unfortunate for everyone, as it could have prevented the subsequent war in Ukraine. Then, following the Russian SMO, Ukraine and Russia sat down to negotiate in Turkey and came to some sort of agreement. Presumably along the lines of the Minsk Accords. Unfortunately again, this agreement was scuttled when the British Prime Minister flew to Ukraine and had a talk with the officials there. This action indicated that Ukraine was not actually in charge of its own destiny, but rather, the war was being controlled by the NATO powers.

The powers in the West clearly thought that they would come out on top in the war and that this would somehow preserve the US hegemony. Unfortunately yet again, the West guessed wrong and made what will likely be viewed in hindsight as a catastrophic decision. Russia cannot be defeated in a conventional war in Eurasia, and presumably the military experts and intelligence folks in the West should have been aware of this fact. Furthermore, the sanctions against Russia were counterproductive. Russia was already highly self-sufficient and the sanctions greatly sped up import substitution. The dream of a regime change in Russia was likewise a case of hope over reality.

Additionally, by refusing diplomacy, the US turned a problem in Eastern Europe into a de facto WWIII. Now the negotiations over a new security architecture will have to cover the entire globe. This will be a much more difficult undertaking and a problematical outcome for the West. The West is not in a military, nor economic, nor social position to be very successful in negotiations with the East and South. Even having negotiations is problematical, since the East and South view the West as being “not agreement capable.” Thus it will dawn sooner or later on the Western leaders that they bit off more than they could chew.

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“This is when they started the war. It lasted for eight years and aimed to exterminate the people who live there and feel themselves tied to Russia..”

Russia Didn’t Start Hostilities In Ukraine, But Tries To End Them – Putin (TASS)

Russia did not begin hostilities in Ukraine, but it is trying to stop them, as hostilities have been going on since 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with aviation industry representatives Thursday. “I would like to say it one more time: we did not start any hostilities, we are trying to end them. These hostilities were started by Ukrainian nationalists and those who supported them in 2014, when the coup took place; that is how it all began, the events in Crimea and in Donbass followed after that,” the head of state said.


Putin pointed out that Kiev started the war against Donbass in 2014, and, in violation of all agreements and obligations, effectively blockaded the Donbass regions. “Heavy military vehicles were used against them, major military operations were carried out against them,” the head of state noted. “This is when they started the war. It lasted for eight years and aimed to exterminate the people who live there and feel themselves tied to Russia, Russian culture and the Russian language by blood. How long could we have kept tolerating it?” The President also thanked the participants of the meeting for their support of the special military operation.

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The images of Europe’s “leaders” are making me sick. They are followers.

Ukraine Is Taking Care Of Europe – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed to EU lawmakers that Moscow poses to a threat to the entire continent. The leader was speaking at the European Parliament on Thursday as part of a tour to rally support and weaponry to prop up Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia. Starting his address with the slogan ‘Glory to Ukraine’, which is commonly associated with World War II-era Nazi collaborators but is widely used in present-day Ukraine, Zelensky reiterated Kiev’s aspirations to join the EU, describing it as “home.” “We want to come home to Europe,” the Ukrainian leader told the assembled lawmakers in Brussels. “I’m here in order to defend our people’s way home.” Zelensky went on to describe Russia as “the most anti-European force” in the world, alleging that Moscow is intent on destroying the “European way of life” for all 27 members of the EU.

“This is our Europe, these are our rules, this is our way of life,” Zelensky added, earning applause from the audience. “Europe will always be, and remain Europe as long as we are together and as long as we take care of our Europe, as we take care of the European way of life.” Joining the EU has been a significant talking point for pro-Western Ukrainian politicians for decades. Yet little to no actual progress had been made along that path prior to hostilities breaking out between Moscow and Kiev last February. The conflict has greatly sped up the accession process, with Ukraine receiving EU candidate status in June. Zelensky’s European tour began a day earlier when he traveled to the UK, meeting the leaders and lawmakers in London. The president inspected the ongoing training of Ukrainian troops on British soil and secured additional support from the UK.

“I am proud that today we will expand that training from soldiers to marines and fighter jet pilots, ensuring Ukraine has a military able to defend its interests well into the future,” said a statement from UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after he met Zelensky. Ukraine has consistently increased its demands for advanced weaponry from the West, including tanks, drones, fighter jets, and longer-range missiles. Kiev has insisted that the hardware is needed to drive Russian forces out of territories that Ukraine claims as its own. Moscow has repeatedly urged the West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with weaponry, maintaining that continuous military aid will only prolong the hostilities, rather than change their ultimate outcome.

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“Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented..”

Zelensky Takes Credit For Derailing Minsk Agreements (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky personally refused to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements – a roadmap for peace in the east of the country, which was co-sponsored by Germany and France. He made the admission during an interview with Der Spiegel published on Thursday as he continues his tour across Europe. Zelensky said he viewed the agreements as a “concession” on Ukraine’s part, and never once actually sought to implement them. Instead, they were merely used to exchange prisoners with the two breakaway Donbass republics. The president claimed he openly told that to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2019, with all of them acting “surprised.”

“But as for Minsk as a whole, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel: ‘We cannot implement it like this,’” Zelensky stated. “I told [Putin] the same as the other two. They were surprised and said: ‘If we had known beforehand that you would change the meaning of our meeting, then there would have been problems even before the summit.’” The Minsk agreements, originally brokered in 2014 and further expanded in 2015, envisioned a roadmap for reconciliation between Ukraine and the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The two regions rebelled against the country’s new authorities in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich. Ukraine’s failure to implement the agreement, which would have seen the breakaway territories reintegrated with the country but retain a special status, ultimately led to the ongoing conflict.

Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, multiple politicians have taken credit for the failure of the Minsk agreements, admitting they were merely a ruse to give Ukraine time to build up its military. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko was the first to admit last year that Kiev never intended to abide by them and used the deal to “create powerful armed forces.” Merkel and another original signatory of the Minsk agreements, former French president Francois Hollande, have also since confirmed that this was actually the true goal of the deal.

Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to flop and for the Donbass crisis to be resolved by force. Russia claims that its military campaign in Ukraine, launched last February, preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help. Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said back in January. “Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he stated at the time.

Coke

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“..I have to force him to help Ukraine and constantly convince him that this help is not for us, but for the Europeans..”

Zelensky Reveals What He Does To Scholz (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has revealed he keeps needing to “force” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to send arms to Kiev, constantly reminding him the deliveries are purportedly beneficial for the whole of Europe. The president made the revelation in a lengthy interview with Der Spiegel published on Thursday. Germany did a “good job” of delivering Iris-T anti-aircraft systems and ammunition for them last year, Zelensky said, while appearing to admit that Kiev has been actively spying on Berlin. “We have changed our relationship and understanding. We received IRIS-T anti-aircraft systems, for which I am very grateful to Germany. You saved a lot of lives. I told the chancellor: Olaf, listen, we’re short on rockets. I know that you don’t have any more yourself, we also have an intelligence service.

“I know you give us everything you have,” Zelensky stated, adding that Scholz somehow managed to push manufacturers into producing munitions for Iris-T faster. The looming supply of modern tanks to Ukraine has also proved to be a “difficult” issue for Kiev and Berlin, as Scholz was reluctant to do so. Zelensky claimed he has had to constantly remind the chancellor about the purported importance of such support and its alleged value for the whole of Europe. “Now we are yet again in a difficult phase with this debate about the German tanks, it is emotional and complex. I have to force him to help Ukraine and constantly convince him that this help is not for us, but for the Europeans,” Zelensky stated.

Germany has long been reluctant to deliver modern tanks to Kiev, with Scholz giving in to Kiev’s demands on January 25 and pledging to send in 14 Leopard 2 armored vehicles, as well as allowing other European operators of the German-made tanks to re-export them to Ukraine. Apart from that, Berlin also pledged to send in some 187 older Leopard 1 models to Ukraine from its stocks as well.

Zel EU

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All too obvious. But some want that world war.

Ukraine’s Entry To NATO Would Spell World War – Hungary (TASS)

The Hungarian government does not back Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO and makes Kiev’s potential entry to the EU contingent on protecting the rights of Ukraine’s national minorities, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyas told reporters Thursday. Answering a question regarding Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, he noted that any country can file a membership application. “However, right now, Ukraine’s immediate accession to NATO would mean world war,” Gulyas cautioned. Speaking about the prospects of Ukraine’s EU membership, he underscored that Kiev must ensure progress in protecting the rights of national minorities – particularly, Ukraine’s Hungarians in the Trans-Carpathian Region – if it wants Budapest to endorse its membership application. So far, legislation on education and the national language, adopted in Ukraine, “does not comply with European norms.” “Progress has to be made” on these issues, the Hungarian official emphasized.

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“The Netherlands and Denmark will not send any of their tanks, but agreed to help Germany fund the purchase and refurbishment of around 100 older Leopard 1 models, which were retired 20 years ago and are currently in various states of disrepair..”

Much-Hyped Tanks For Ukraine In Short Supply – WSJ (RT)

NATO members have developed “sudden misgivings” about sending tanks to Ukraine because they don’t seem to have any to spare, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Finland, which pressured Germany to approve exports of Leopard 2 tanks, may only be able to send “a few” of its own – and most likely not until it formally joins the US-led military bloc. This has left Berlin as the only major supplier of tanks to Kiev, something Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been keen to avoid, the Journal noted. There are more than 2,000 Leopard 2 tanks in the stocks of various European NATO armies, but only Berlin and Warsaw have committed to sending any. Germany and Poland have promised about 14 apiece. Warsaw will also throw in 60 of its modified T-72s, while Berlin is buying up almost 190 decommissioned Leopard 1s for refurbishment, some of which may need to be cannibalized for parts.

In a December interview, Ukraine’s top general asked for 300 tanks right away. Canada has promised four tanks, while Portugal wants to send three. “The fact that there are so few operational battle tanks and that they are so incompatible with each other should be taken as an alarm signal in Europe,” Nico Lange, a former German defense official who is now a senior fellow at the Munich Security Conference, told the Journal. The Netherlands and Denmark will not send any of their tanks, but agreed to help Germany fund the purchase and refurbishment of around 100 older Leopard 1 models, which were retired 20 years ago and are currently in various states of disrepair. Denmark only has 44 Leopards and the Dutch operate 18 that are on lease from Germany, noted Minna Alander of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Finland faces a different “limitation” due to its own need to protect the country’s long border with Russia, she added.

Finland will be “part of the Leopard 2 cooperation in some way,” an anonymous senior official told the Journal, but declined to give any details. Helsinki has “signaled” it would “most likely” avoid tank deliveries until it officially joins NATO, according to a senior bloc official, likewise unnamed. Even then, it may only be able to spare a few of its 240 operational tanks. The UK has promised 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks, saying they ought to be delivered by the end of March. The US pledged 31 Abrams tanks as well, but getting them to Ukraine might take up to two years. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has already moved on, demanding fighter jets on his trip to London, Paris and Brussels. The US and its allies have spent over $120 billion to prop up the Kiev government over the past year, while insisting they are not a party to the conflict. Moscow has warned them that supplying Ukraine with weapons only prolongs the fighting and risks direct confrontation.

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Nor France.

UK Not Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine (RT)

The UK is currently focused on helping Ukraine ensure air cover by providing long-range missiles and drones, rather than the less “realistic” option of sending fighter jets, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Thursday. Speaking to the BBC, Wallace cautioned that sending aircraft to Kiev could potentially take months, and ruled out any immediate transfers, while saying it would be “more realistic and more productive” to provide Ukraine with aircraft after the conflict with Russia has ended, for long-term security purposes. “This is not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border,” Wallace told the broadcaster, adding that Britain “knows what Ukraine needs and is very happy to help in many ways” which would not take as long as fighter jet deliveries would.


Wallace dismissed suggestions made by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson that London could provide Kiev with 100 Typhoon warplanes. The defense secretary insisted that he has a duty to ensure the UK and NATO maintain a sufficient number of fighter planes to ensure their own defense. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made his first trip to the UK since the fighting broke out between Kiev and Moscow. Ahead of the visit, the UK prime minister’s office announced that Britain would be providing training to Ukrainian pilots on how to operate NATO-standard aircraft. PM Rishi Sunak also committed to expanding the UK’s recruit training program, which has already seen 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers brought to battle readiness in the last six months. The UK now hopes to train an additional 20,000 troops this year.

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It’s a slow development, but it does continue.

Russia-Iran Dump The Dollar And Bust US Sanctions (Escobar)

The agreement between the Central Banks of Russia and Iran formally signed on 29 January connecting their interbank transfer systems is a game-changer in more ways than one. Technically, from now on 52 Iranian banks already using SEPAM, Iran’s interbank telecom system, are connecting with 106 banks using SPFS, Russia’s equivalent to the western banking messaging system SWIFT. Less than a week before the deal, State Duma Chairman Vyachslav Volodin was in Tehran overseeing the last-minute details, part of a meeting of the Russia-Iran Inter-Parliamentary Commission on Cooperation: he was adamant both nations should quickly increase trade in their own currencies.

Confirming that the share of ruble and rial in mutual settlements already exceeds 60 percent, Volodin ratified the success of “joint use of the Mir and Shetab national payment systems.” Not only does this bypass western sanctions, but it is able to “solve issues related to mutually beneficial cooperation, and increasing trade.” It is quite possible that the ruble will eventually become the main currency in bilateral trade, according to Iran’s ambassador in Moscow, Kazem Jalali: “Now more than 40 percent of trade between our countries is in rubles.” Jalali also confirmed, crucially, that Tehran is in favor of the ruble as the main currency in all regional integration mechanisms. He was referring particularly to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), with which Iran is clinching a free trade deal.

The SEPAM-SPFS agreement starts with a pilot program supervised by Iran’s Shahr Bank and Russia’s VTB Bank. Other lenders will step in once the pilot program gets rid of any possible bugs. The key advantage is that SEPAM and SPFS are immune to the US and western sanctions ruthlessly imposed on Tehran and Moscow. Once the full deal is up and running, all Iranian and Russian banks can be interconnected. It is no wonder the Global South is paying very close attention. This is likely to become a landmark case in bypassing Belgium-based SWIFT – which is essentially controlled by Washington, and on a minor scale, the EU. The success of SEPAM-SPFS will certainly encourage other bilateral or even multilateral deals between states.

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That makes the US a participant.

US Military At European Base Provide GPS-Targeting For Ukrainian Rockets (PM)

The United States has provided Ukraine with HIMARS, which are targeted missile systems, and it turns out the US is also providing Ukraine with the targets at which to launch those missiles. Biden has said the US would fund Ukraine’s war effort “as long as it takes.” A report from the Washington Post states that “Ukrainian officials say that they almost never launch HIMARS rounds without detailed coordinates provided by U.S. military personnel situated elsewhere in Europe.” Those coordinates are either “provided or confirmed” by the US and its NATO allies before Ukraine launches their strikes against Russia, which invaded Ukraine nearly one year ago. That the US was giving over not only the HIMARS but the means by which targets would be ascertained by the Ukraine military was not previously disclosed by the Pentagon.

What this means is that the Pentagon is not only providing weapons and aid, but is actively engaged in making war on Russia. This is not something the Biden administration has been forthcoming about. The Pentagon issued a statement from Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, reading “We have long acknowledged that we share intelligence with Ukraine to assist them in defending their country against Russian aggression, and we have optimized over time how we share information to be able to support their requests and their targeting processes at improved speed and scale. The Ukrainians are responsible for finding targets, prioritizing them and then ultimately deciding which ones to engage. The U.S. does not approve targets, nor are we involved in the selection or engagement of targets.”

Biden has insisted that the US is merely helping Ukraine have the tools to wage war, but actively assisting Ukraine in assessing targets and then attacking those targets is not something that, to the knowledge of the American public, has been approved by Congress. A US official who spoke to WaPo under the condition of anonymity said that the US providing “targeting assistance” increased the ability of Ukraine to launch missiles with accuracy, thereby not wasting their limited amunition. Ukraine uses their own targeting methods for attacks with their own weapons, but when it comes to HIMARS, the “U.S. provides coordinates and precise targeting information solely in an advisory role.”

As to how that process works, it was reported that it goes like this: “Ukrainian military personnel identify targets they want to hit, and in which location, and that information is then sent up to senior commanders, who then relay the request to U.S. partners for more accurate coordinates. The Americans do not always provide the requested coordinates, the official said, in which case the Ukrainian troops do not fire. A third Ukrainian official cited by WaPo “confirmed that targeting all goes through an American installation on NATO soil and described the process as ‘very fast.'”

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The emptiest gesture so far?! “One of the most important questions is how Ukraine will use the bulbs when it’s suffering power outages as a result of the war?”

EU’s Aid For Ukraine Is Effectively Public Aid For Itself (RMX)

Let there be light! President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has announced that the EU is to deliver 35 million energy-saving LED light bulbs to Ukraine worth €50 million. They will be made available free of charge at post offices across the country. She said that Ukraine should be an inspiration to Europe, with thousands of Ukrainians changing to LED bulbs to work towards cleaner energy. “They are energy-saving, very good,” she says in footage shot during the visit. The EU once again shows it thinks climate change is more important than anything else. The light bulbs are an even more surreal gift than the 5,000 helmets the Germans gave at the start of the war.


One of the most important questions is how Ukraine will use the bulbs when it’s suffering power outages as a result of the war? Finally, we should not have the wool pulled over our eyes. If the EU bought these bulbs from the largest European producers, which come from Germany, the Netherlands, and France, this is nothing more than a way of giving public aid to these companies. Once again, Germany shows its transactional face.

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Not terribly convincing so far.

Details Emerge On Chinese ‘Spy Balloon’ – WSJ (RT)

The alleged Chinese “spy balloon,” shot down off the coast of South Carolina last weekend, was equipped with advanced surveillance equipment capable of picking up sensitive communications, an unnamed senior State Department official told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The Biden administration is reportedly planning to retaliate. While China has maintained the balloon was a civilian airship that drifted off course while collecting meteorological data, the source claimed its manufacturer had a “direct relationship” with the Chinese military. It was fitted with “large” solar panels to power the extensive instrumentation on board, which allegedly included antennas, sensors and other equipment capable of intercepting communications and gathering other intelligence.

The unnamed official said the US military spent the eight days the alleged spy craft was traversing the continental US gathering information about the device, using high-altitude U2 spy planes. Authorities are also reportedly examining the debris found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The House and Senate are set to be briefed by military, intelligence and diplomatic officials regarding the balloon on Thursday. The newly declassified information is meant to “justify the US’s impending action” that President Joe Biden is preparing to take against “China’s surveillance program,” the outlet said. Beijing uses similar balloons for surveillance across five continents, administration officials claimed on Wednesday. The Pentagon asserted that China had nearly doubled the size of its satellite fleet between 2018 and 2021 and now had 260 surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance satellites monitoring the globe.

The balloon, which drifted over a nuclear missile site and other sensitive military assets, could have been carrying explosives in its multi-ton payload, US Northern Command Chief General Glen VanHerck told Politico on Monday, adding that several similar Chinese craft have flown over the US before, but the Pentagon somehow missed them. Despite the apparent threat of explosives, the White House has said the military waited to destroy the balloon until it was over water, so as not to imperil any civilians or property with falling debris. Airspace over parts of North and South Carolina was closed, as fighter jets were finally sent to shoot it down on Saturday. China’s Foreign Ministry has demanded the return of what was left of the balloon, reminding Biden on Tuesday that “the airship does not belong to the US – it belongs to China.”

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Did Biden just say the US needs fossils only for 10 more years? Was he just talking about himself there?

GOP-Led House Panels Shift Gears, Go Full Throttle for Domestic Energy Production (ET)

With Republicans assuming control of the U.S. House of Representatives following the November 2022 midterm elections, the newly installed GOP leadership has been doing just that across the chamber’s 20 standing permanent committees and their 104 subcommittees and select temporary panels. That transitional shift-change has been clearly evident this week in seminal session meetings of the 52-member House Energy and Commerce Committee and its six subcommittees and in the 45-member House Natural Resources Committee and its five subsidiary panels.

During four years of Democratic control, climate change, environmental protection, and “green” energy development were among the primary policy drivers in adopting legislation designed to coax the nation away from reliance on oil and gas, including the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and $740 billion Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA). Over two days and nearly eight hours of hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Feb. 7 and the House Natural Resource Committee on Feb. 8, Republicans made it clear that many initiatives passed under the Biden administration promoting electric vehicles, carbon capture, green energy, and environmental protection are on the proverbial chopping block.

During the near-six hour House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting, six witnesses testified on a raft of 17 Republican-sponsored measures that proponents argue are key to “restoring American energy dominance.” Among the proposals that will dominate the committee’s and its subsidiary panels’ agendas in the coming months are bills prohibiting restrictions on hydraulic fracking without congressional approval, expanding natural gas exports, repealing the IRA’s Green House Reduction Fund, and amending the Clean Air, Toxic Substances Control, Solid Waste Disposal, and National Gas Tax acts. Within the tranche of proposed legislation on the committee’s “unleashing American energy agenda” are bills calling for permitting reform, promoting development of “critical minerals,” and prohibiting the import of Russian uranium.

In kicking off the day-long hearing, Republicans argued that “unleashing American energy, lowering energy costs, and strengthening supply chains” must be a priority if the United States is to be economically competitive in the 21st century and beyond. “America has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We should be working towards developing a predictable regulatory landscape across-the-board that inspires innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological leadership, hydropower, nuclear, fossil energies, wind, solar, and batteries,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in opening the proceedings.

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“..Hersh tells the story of the US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines in forensic detail, giving dates, times, method and military units involved..”

When you feel compelled to smear your only left real journalists, you’re in deep.

Sy Hersh and The Way We Live Now (Craig Murray)

It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net. Hersh tells the story of the US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines in forensic detail, giving dates, times, method and military units involved. He also outlines the importance of the Norwegian armed forces working alongside the US Navy in the operation. One point Sy does not much stress, but it is worth saying more about, is that Norway and the USA are of course the two countries who have benefitted financially, to an enormous degree, from blowing up the pipeline.

Both not only have gained huge export surpluses from the jump in gas prices, but Norway has directly replaced Russian gas to the tune of some $40 billion per year. From 2023 the United States will appear in that list in second place behind Norway, following the opening in the last two months of two new Liquefied Natural Gas terminals in Germany, built to replace Russian gas with US and Qatari supplies. So Russia lost out massively financially from the destruction of Nordstream and who benefited? The USA and Norway, the two countries who blew up the pipeline. But of course, this war is nothing to do with money or hydrocarbons and is all about freedom and democracy… To return to Hersh’s account, particularly interesting are the series of decisions taken to avoid classification of the operation in various ways which would require it to be reported to Congress.

In terms of United States history, this ought to be a big deal. For the Executive to commit what is an act of war without the approval of the Legislature is fundamentally unconstitutional. But that is one of those quaint remnants of democracy that the neo-liberal elite consensus can quietly sidestep nowadays. Hersh sets out the well known background in compelling detail, including the fact that, from Biden down, the Americans effectively announced what they were going to do, openly. But what most worries me about the entire story is the unanimous complicity of the mainstream media in ignoring the completely obvious.

[..] The secret is not that people genuinely believe an outrageous claim. The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil. Don’t question, just follow. If you do question, you are promoting evil. I am sure that is how it works. State and corporate stenographer journalists are actually intelligent individuals. If they thought about it, they would realise that the narrative that Russia blew up its own pipeline is obvious nonsense. But they are convinced it is morally wrong to think about it. Which is why none of them challenged the equally mad claims that Russia was repeatedly shelling its own forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, and indeed is why none of them challenged the utterly risible official version of the Skripal story.

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Pretty crazy hearings.

Rep. Higgins Tells Twitter Executives to Prepare to be Arrested (TP)

On Wednesday, former top executives at Twitter appeared before the House oversight committee to give testimony regarding the social media giant’s management of information related to Joe Biden’s son and interference with the 2020 election. The hearing marks the start of the agenda of the newly-Republican controlled House, highlighting their focus on long-standing claims that major tech companies exhibited a bias against conservatism. At one point during the hearing, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins unleashed on former Twitter execs James Baker, Vijaya Gadde & Yoel Roth, saying that they need to get ready to be arrested. “The bottom line is that the FBI had the Biden crime family laptop for a year,” Higgins said. “They knew it was leaking, they knew it would hurt the Biden campaign.”

“So the FBI used its relationship with Twitter to suppress criminal evidence being revealed about Joe Biden one month before the 2020 election,” he continued. “You ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly,” Higgins hammered. “That’s the bad news. It’s going to get worse.” “This is the investigation part, later comes the arrest part, your attorneys are familiar with that,” Higgins said. “I’d like to spend five hours with these ladies and gentlemen doing depositions surely yet to come”.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1623412720199426048

At another point during the hearing, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene unleashed on former Twitter executive Yoel Roth for allowing child exploitation on Twitter and for advocating for teenagers to use gay hookup act Grinder. “I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs. Thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter,” she said. “It’s amazing to me Mr. Roth as the head and Trust and Safety at Twitter your ability or should I say inability to remove child porn,” Taylor Greene said. “Now here is something that disgusts me about you. In your doctoral dissertation entitled ‘Gay Data,’ you argued that minors should have access to grinder, an adult male gay hook-up app,” she continued. “Minors. Really?” “You know, Elon Musk took over and he banned 44,000 accounts that were promoting child porn,” Greene added. “You permanently banned my Twitter account, but you allowed child porn all over Twitter.”

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FAA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1622316296837660674

 

 

LNP
https://twitter.com/i/status/1623731239239798789

 

 

Clotting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1623751085629267968

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jul 192022
 
 July 19, 2022  Posted by at 7:36 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan Trafalgar Square 1939-43

 

Operation Z – Don’t Interrupt (Larry Johnson)
Gazprom Declares Force Majeure, To Halt Gas Flows To Germany Indefinitely (ZH)
Russian Economy Expected To Thrive By Year’s End (RT)
Germany’s Energy Crisis About To Get Worse As Rhine Water Levels Plummet (ZH)
Staged Incidents As The Western Approach To Doing Politics (Lavrov)
Germany and France ‘Killed’ Minsk Agreements – Lavrov (RT)
Ukraine Treated Donbass People As Sub-humans, Making Peace Impossible (Ugolny)
Canadian Energy Firm Declares Force Majeure On Keystone Pipeline (ZH)
The Recession May Already Be Here (Lacalle)
House Democrats Push Bill To Add Four Seats To Supreme Court (JTN)
Novak Djokovic US Open Row Escalates (Exp.)
The Last Days of “Joe Biden” (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Makary

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..you should never interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake..”

Operation Z – Don’t Interrupt (Larry Johnson)

One of Napoleon’s observations is that you should never interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake. Russians know this, not least because they were careful not to interrupt Napoleon himself in 1812. Putin and his team have had plenty of opportunities to meet NATO’s leaders, observe them, negotiate with them and assess them. It’s unlikely they’re very impressed. But when they started their “special military operation” in Ukraine they could never have dreamed how self-destructive NATO would be. What mistakes? First, the West has not shot itself in the foot with its economic sanctions – Hungary’s Viktor Orban is right when he observes that it has put a slug into its lungs.

One can still limp along with a broken foot, but a shot to the lungs is pretty serious. Second, who in Moscow could have imagined that NATO would shovel its ammunition and weapons stockpiles into the Ukrainian black hole in the expectation that if they can get the latest wonderwaffe to General Steiner they’ll be in Moscow by Christmas. A good reason for Moscow to take it slowly – let the mistakes develop, compound and metastasize. It’s happening by itself. Naturally, inevitably, logically. No outside effort required. An unexpected bonus. Don’t interrupt.

Consider Germany, “the engine of Europe“. It stands on one thing – the reputation of German engineering and quality – Mercedes/Miele/Bosch, they may cost more but they’re cheaper in the long run because they’re so well made. No Western country manufactures much these days but Germany still does. In fact, only South Korea and China have a bigger share of their economies in manufacturing. (America, the colossus of former times, is half Germany!) But manufacturing needs energy. German energy comes from Russia – not all of it – about 20%. But coal is 40% and nuclear 10% and they have to reduce these because Greta wants them to which means they need more gas which is cheaper and “cleaner” and which mostly comes from Russia which requires another pipeline to be built. But then they decide that Ukraine is The Big Moral Issue and close the pipeline and step up coal which they’re going to get rid of altogether in 2030 thanks to more wind energy.

And what about the nukes? Unicorn wings flapping. Hard to be green and hate Russia too. And let’s ban potash from Russia and Belarus. That’s about a third of world production. Ban Russian wheat (it is the number 1 exporter) and oil (it is the number 2 exporter). Oh, and by confiscating Russian assets they’ve shown the whole world that only an idiot would keep his wealth in NATO currency in a NATO bank. And all this for a country they lied to about NATO membership. Don’t interrupt.

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The turbine is on its way.

Gazprom Declares Force Majeure, To Halt Gas Flows To Germany Indefinitely (ZH)

Already days before the July 22 European “Doomsday” when the scheduled Russian 10-day maintenance of the crucial Nord Stream pipeline to Germany is slated to end – but which was thrown into deep doubt given Gazprom recently said it can no longer guarantee its “good functioning” due to crucial turbines being previously held up in Canada related to sanctions – the Russian energy giant has declared Force Majeure to one major European customer. Simply put, Gazprom declared extraordinary and extreme circumstances to void itself from all contractual obligations to this customer, thus the gas will stop flowing indefinitely, as Reuters reports in a breaking development Monday, “Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom has declared force majeure on gas supplies to Europe to at least one major customer starting June 14, according to the letter seen by Reuters.”

The letter is dated July 14. “It said the force majeure measure, a clause invoked when a business is hit by something beyond its control, was effective from deliveries starting from June 14,” writes Reuters. As we’ve been detailing, German authorities have of late taken unprecedented steps in anticipation of an enduring Russian gas halt, essentially dimming the lights across the country – which has included everything from limiting hot water, to shutting down swimming pools, to quite literally dimming city street lights as it entered “alarm” stage over dwindling supply.

And as demonstrated in the Monday morning oil price spike, the bid for oil will remain strong the longer the force majeure holds, given utility companies and the manufacturing sector are likely to seek transition to oil from gas… It seems this letter declaring its legal release from supply obligations going back to June 14 is in preparation for definitive action on July 22, namely that the pipeline’s operations are likely to remain suspended past the scheduled reboot/supply back online designated date. In an analysis from earlier this month (available to pro subscribers), UBS economists laid out a detailed vision of what they see happening if Russia halts gas deliveries to Europe: It would reduce corporate earnings by more than 15%.

The market selloff would exceed 20% in the Stoxx 600 and the euro would drop to 90 cents. The rush for safe assets would drive benchmark German bund yields to 0%, they wrote. “We stress that these projections should be seen as rough approximations and by no means as a worse-case scenario,” wrote Arend Kapteyn, chief economist at UBS. “We could easily conceive economic disruptions that lead to more negative growth outcomes.” To be sure, markets are already pricing in some of the damage beginning with the euro which starting this month traded at a fresh two-decade low and touched parity with the dollar, something it hasn’t done since 2002.

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The only one.

Russian Economy Expected To Thrive By Year’s End (RT)

The Russian economy is expected to show positive developments by the end of the year, Maksim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said during a speech at a youth forum on Saturday. “The wheels of our economy are building momentum step by step, lending volumes are increasing, and interest rates are falling. We see that the loan portfolios of banks are already growing, while during the most difficult periods in April-May, they were declining. All this indicates that the wheels of the economy have started to work. And by the end of the year, we should see positive developments,” Oreshkin said. The presidential aide noted that the situation is improving in retail sales, which are showing growth compared to last year, boosting business revenue.

Oreshkin also said Russia’s key task is to build a “sovereign economy” which would be “confident in its abilities, working with any partners, but at the same time does not depend on them and is invulnerable.” His remarks echo the view of the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, who said earlier this week that Russia should strive to reach “technological sovereignty” and focus the economy on prioritizing domestic needs, while continuing to increase export potential. In early June, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would not close off its economy, despite Ukraine-related Western sanctions. Speaking at the SPIEF forum, the president called openness one of the key principles of Russia’s new economic policy, and said the country has no wish to retreat behind an iron curtain comparable to the Soviet era.

The Russian economy has been put under intense pressure by Western sanctions, introduced in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Moscow has been prevented from conducting many international transactions, with businesses and individuals sanctioned, while half of Russia’s foreign currency reserves have been frozen abroad, and many international companies have quit the Russian market. Nevertheless, Moscow says Western policies have failed to destabilize the country’s economy.

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When it rains…

Germany’s Energy Crisis About To Get Worse As Rhine Water Levels Plummet (ZH)

What has already been a year from hell for Germany, which is suffering energy hyperinflation as a result of Europe’s sanctions on Russia, and which is “facing the biggest crisis the country has every had” according to the president of the German employers association, is about to get even worse as the declining water level of the Rhine river, which has historically been a key infrastructure transit artery across Germany, continues to fall and as it does, the flow of commodities to inland Europe is starting to buckle threatening to make an already historic crisis even worse. The alarming lack of water is contributing to oil product supply problems in Switzerland and preventing at least two power plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need, and what’s more, the continent’s sizzling summer temperatures are forecast to climb even higher in the coming week, leading to even lower water levels.

The 800-mile (1,288-kilometer) Rhine river runs from Switzerland all the way to the North Sea and is used to transport tens of millions of tons of commodities through inland Europe. But with water levels at their lowest for the time of year in 15 years, there is a limit how much fuel, coal and other vital cargo that barges can carry up and down the river. Low water levels on the Rhine River mean that barges hauling middle distillate-type oil products – typically gasoil/diesel – past Kaub in Germany, are limited to loading about 30% of capacity, according to maritime brokerage services firm Riverlake.

A barge loading in the energy hub of Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (or ARA), which can haul 2.5k tons when fully laden, is restricted to taking on about 800 tons if sailing to destinations beyond Kaub. As shown below, the water level at Kaub has fallen in recent days and is at its lowest on a seasonal basis since at least 2007. According to Riverlake, further decreases in loading volumes for barges hauling middle distillates from ARA to inland destinations beyond Kaub are expected in coming days.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s op-ed in Izvestia.

Staged Incidents As The Western Approach To Doing Politics (Lavrov)

February 2014, Ukraine – the West, represented by the German, French, and Polish foreign ministers, de facto forced President Viktor Yanukovich into signing an agreement with the opposition to end the confrontation and promote a peaceful resolution of the intra-Ukrainian crisis by establishing a transitional national unity government and calling a snap election, to be held within a few months. This too turned out to be a fraud: the next morning, the opposition staged a coup guided as it was by anti-Russia, racist slogans. However, the Western guarantors did not even try to bring the opposition back to its senses. Furthermore, they switched immediately to encouraging the coup perpetrators in their policies against Russia and everything Russian, unleashing the war against their own people and bombing entire cities in the Donbass region just because people there refused to recognise the unconstitutional coup. For that, they labelled the people in Donbass terrorists, and once again the West was there to encourage them.

At this point, it is worth noting that, as it was soon revealed, the killing of protestors on the Maidan was also a staged incident, which the West blamed either on the Ukrainian security forces loyal to Viktor Yanukovich, or on the Russian special services. However, the radical members of the opposition were the ones who were behind this provocation, while working closely with the Western intelligence services. Once again, exposing these facts did not take long, but by that time they already did their job. Efforts by Russia, Germany, and France paved the way to stopping the war between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk in February 2015 with the signing of the Minsk Agreements. Berlin and Paris played a proactive role here as well, proudly calling themselves as the guarantor countries.

However, during the seven long years that followed, they did absolutely nothing to force Kiev to launch a direct dialogue with Donbass representatives for agreeing on matters including the special status, amnesty, restoring economic ties, and holding elections, as required by the Minsk Agreements which were approved unanimously by the UN Security Council. The Western leaders remained silent when Kiev took steps which directly violated the Minsk Agreements under both Petr Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky. Moreover, the German and the French leaders kept saying that Kiev cannot enter direct dialogue with the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and blamed everything on Russia, although Russia is not mentioned in the Minsk agreements even once, while remaining basically the only country that kept pushing for the agreements to be implemented.

If anyone doubted that the Minsk Package was anything but yet another fake, Petr Poroshenko dispelled this myth by saying on June 17, 2022: “The Minsk Agreements did not mean anything to us, and we had no intention to carry them out… our goal was to remove the threat we faced… and win time in order to restore economic growth and rebuild the armed forces. We achieved this goal. Mission accomplished for the Minsk Agreements.”

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“Zelensky’s presidency gave an initial boost to the peace process, but stalled after a series of protests by right-wing radicals..”

Germany and France ‘Killed’ Minsk Agreements – Lavrov (RT)

Germany is demanding that Russia guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but such a deal was previously signed, only to be “killed” by Berlin and Paris, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. “When [German Chancellor] Olaf Scholz demands that Russia should be compelled to sign an agreement granting Ukraine guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty, all his attempts are in vain. There was already such a deal – the Minsk agreements – which was killed by Berlin and Paris. They were shielding Kiev, which openly refused to comply,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Russian newspaper Izvestia. Russia, Germany and France brokered the 2015 Minsk agreements between Ukraine and Donbass, which were designed to put an end to hostilities. But according to Lavrov, Berlin and Paris failed to ensure Kiev’s compliance.

[..] The Minsk agreements included a series of measures designed to rein in hostilities in Donbass and reconcile the warring parties. The first steps were a ceasefire and an OSCE-monitored pullout of heavy weapons from the frontline, which were fulfilled to some degree. Kiev was then supposed to grant a general amnesty to the rebels and extensive autonomy for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Ukrainian troops were supposed to take control of the rebel-held areas after Kiev granted them representation, and otherwise reintegrate them as part of Ukraine. Poroshenko’s government refused to implement these portions of the deal, claiming it could not proceed unless it fully secured the border between the breakaway republics and Russia.

He instead endorsed an economic blockade of the rebel regions, initiated by Ukrainian nationalist forces. Zelensky’s presidency gave an initial boost to the peace process, but stalled after a series of protests by right-wing radicals, who threatened to depose the new Ukrainian president if he tried to deliver on his campaign promises. Kiev’s failure to implement the roadmap, and the continued hostilities with rebels, were among the primary reasons cited by Russia when it attacked Ukraine in late February. Days before launching the offensive, Moscow recognized the breakaway Ukrainian republics as sovereign states, offering them security guarantees and demanding that Kiev pull back its troops. Zelensky refused to comply.

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Vladislav Ugolny is a Russian journalist based in Donetsk

Ukraine Treated Donbass People As Sub-humans, Making Peace Impossible (Ugolny)

No Ukrainian politicians were saints, and neither were the people of Donbass – not that anyone had asked them to be, though. The fact of the matter is that every escalation of violence was aimed at them. It was the Ukrainians who kept upping the ante, and nobody cared. The miners have always died, you know. Why should anyone feel sorry for them? They’re ‘dumb slaves’, they wear no balaclavas. Back then, in 2014, balaclavas were seen as a symbol of superior people, while the ‘stupid miners’ from Donbass (led by Valery Bolotov) and their volunteer supporters from Russia (led by Igor Strelkov) deliberately spurned them. The lives of the residents of impoverished mining towns cost less than the lives of those living in prosperous towns near the Carpathian Mountains. The air in Donbass stinks of soot and is full of coal dust and industrial emissions, so people die of cancer there, whereas the mountain air in Galicia is fresh and fragrant, and the wind of freedom blows in from Poland.

Children were killed in Donbass. Nobody gave a damn, except Russia and the repressed Russians in the rest of Ukraine. It was rather amusing for the other side – people scraping their dead children off the asphalt and saying: ‘We’re being bombed, we’re scared, our children are dying!’ Ukrainians thought it was funny, a just punishment for those dehumanized earth-diggers. They called their children ‘Colorado beetle larvae’, because the stripes of the Colorado potato beetle resemble the St. George’s ribbon, which became the symbol of the uprising in Novorossiya.

All of this convinced Donbass it had the moral high ground, which allowed it to stand tall and weather eight years of incredible hardship. The Ukrainians were granted the chance to reach a political settlement with the Minsk agreements, if they agreed to treat Donbass as a sovereign region within Ukraine. Had they done this, Donbass would have lost interest in politics, returned to its industrial roots, and left policymaking in the hands of western Ukraine again in a few years’ time. But they wouldn’t do this, even for the sake of stopping the war. Recognizing the sovereignty of Donbass was a red line for Ukraine, and so was dialogue with Donbass.

The Ukrainian leadership stuck to those red lines even after Russia said it was going to put an end to the ongoing slaughter at its doorstep. So, what we now have is a new season of war, which has been going on for Donbass since 2014. The two people’s republics’ armies are storming Ukrainian fortifications as the Ukrainian military continues to bomb residential areas in Donetsk. People in Donbass stopped wondering “what they are capable of.” Now they know that the Ukrainian army and government are capable of anything – bombing cities, torturing people, and trying to pass off Donetsk people that they killed for Kiev residents, supposedly killed by Russian missile strikes. The only thing they can’t do is admit that the citizens of Donbass are people just like them, people who have their own interests and are prepared to fight for them until they win or die in battle.

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Force majeure is popular…

Canadian Energy Firm Declares Force Majeure On Keystone Pipeline (ZH)

Just hours after Gazprom declared force majuere with a number of its European clients – implicitly cutting off NatGas supply to the continent; Canadian energy firm TC Energy has declared force majeure on some crude shipments on the Keystone pipeline after a power failure at a pump station in South Dakota. The power failure was reportedly driven by the extreme temperatures spreading across the US (it was reportedly around 20 degrees above normal at around 100 degrees). The pipeline “is operating at a reduced rate due to damage to the third-party power utility,” according to a statement by the company. Notably this is affecting shipments from Canada to the United States, according to the company.

As a reminder, the pipeline runs from Hardisty, Alberta into North Dakota, through South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska, where it splits – one arm running east through Missouri for deliveries into Wood River and Patoka, Illinois and the other running south through Oklahoma to Cushing and onward to Port Arthur and Houston, Texas Bloomberg reports that the discount at which Cold Lake crude for August delivery trades to benchmark futures along the Gulf Coast narrowed by more than 8% to $8 a barrel, according to Link Data Services. Perhaps most notably, Cold Lake crude is a type of heavy oil mined from the oil-sands region of northern Alberta and favored by some Texas and Louisiana refiners equipped to turn it into gasoline, diesel and other products. For now there is no reaction in RBOB prices.

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“Negative real wage growth, weakening consumption, decade-low consumer confidence and collapsing investment..”

The Recession May Already Be Here (Lacalle)

The debate about recession risk is pointless. We are already in a recession. Real GDP in the United States declined at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter. The Atlanta Fed Nowcast shows a 1.5% contraction in the second quarter. But the underlying figures are scarier. According to the Atlanta Fed, “the GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is -1.5% on July 15, down from -1.2% on July 8”. That is an enormous negative change, -0.3% of GDP, in one week. They go on to say that “the nowcast of second quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 1.9% and -13.7%, respectively, to 1.5% and -13.8%, respectively”.

Investment is collapsing, consumption is barely kept alive and if we look at other components, imports are soaring while exports rise less than expected. This is the backlash of massive stimulus packages. An artificial boost to GDP in one year from two trillion US dollars of excessive spending generated a non-structural rise in GDP that immediately leads to a contraction. However, the debt increase remains, and the structural problems are evident. The labor market is only strong in headlines. In June, the number of long-term unemployed was unchanged at 1.3 million. This is 215,000 higher than in February 2020. Labor force participation rate was 62.2%, employment-population ratio 59.9%. Both remain below February 2020 levels (63.4% and 61.2%) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Meanwhile, inflation eats any wage rise and real median wage increase is negative in 2022. Real average hourly earnings decreased 3.6 percent, seasonally adjusted, from June 2021 to June 2022, the BLS reports. Negative real wage growth, weakening consumption, decade-low consumer confidence and collapsing investment means we are already in recession and the massive stimulus plans have created nothing but debt.


s
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Won’t fly.

House Democrats Push Bill To Add Four Seats To Supreme Court (JTN)

House Democrats on Monday demanded legislation to add four seats to the Supreme Court in hopes of moving the judicial body away from its current conservative slant. The lawmakers made their push at a press conference hosted by the Take Back the Court Action Fund on Monday. Their demands follow rulings from the high court handing conservatives major wins on both abortion and gun rights. The court in late June overturned the landmark abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade, returning the right to regulate the procedure to the states. One day prior, it struck down a New York law restricting the issuance of concealed carry permits
The Supreme Court is “making decisions that usurp the power of the legislative and executive branches,” said Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., according to The Hill.


Some preemptively addressed detractors who would call the effort “court-packing” saying the Republicans did so first. “The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). “That’s how they got this far-right 6-3 majority in the first place.” The Court’s 6-3 conservative slant is in part due to President Donald Trump’s appointment of three associate justices to the bench. Neil Gorsuch replaced Antonin Scalia, while Brett Kavanaugh replaced Anthony Kennedy, and Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Congress has previously changed the number of justices on the court seven times, The Hill noted. The measure is unlikely to become law as Democrats will likely be unable to clear the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold in the Senate in the face of stiff Republican opposition.

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“How many jabs did Fauci get? Banning Djokovic would be equally stupid.”

Novak Djokovic US Open Row Escalates (Exp.)

Two more political figures have thrown support behind Novak Djokovic as he remains unable to play the US Open as an unvaccinated traveller. The United States currently bans any unvaccinated foreign nationals from entering the country but one of Donald Trump’s former aides has become the latest to criticise the rules and put pressure on Joe Biden, with a Senator echoing his calls. Djokovic is still in doubt to play the final Grand Slam tournament of the year with unvaccinated travellers unable to enter the United States. The world No 7 has already confirmed he does not intend to get vaccinated just to compete and will find himself banned from the country unless the rules change.

Several American politicians have condemned the ban already and called for the Serb to be allowed into the country to compete, and now two more have ridiculed the policy of stopping unjabbed visitors from entering the United States. “Let @DjokerNole play in the @usopen! The U.S. Open cheapens itself when it bans one of the best players in the world,” Richard Grenell tweeted. The former politician was picked by Donald Trump to be the U.S. Ambassador to Germany in 2017 and the U.S. Acting Director of National Intelligence in 2020. He was also the Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations for 15 months from October 2019, linking him to the Serb’s home country. And current Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has now echoed Grenell’s words, slamming the idea of keeping Djokovic out of the country as “stupid”.

He tweeted: “RichardGrenelli is 100% correct on this. “Has anyone noticed the vaccines are NOT preventing infection and transmission? The mandates are idiotic, pointless and destructive. How many jabs did Fauci get? Banning Djokovic would be equally stupid.” Johnson and Grenell’s tweets come after two other US politicians criticised the ban on Djokovic and other unvaccinated travellers. Texas State Senator Drew Springer and Senator for Kentucky, Rand Paul pressured Biden over the issue last week. “Biden is banning Novak Djokovic from coming to USA to play the US Open but allows millions of unvaccinated illegals to flood across the border. Hey Joe, what’s one more unvaxed person?!?! Springer tweeted last Sunday, before Paul said: “Hooray for heroic stances for medical freedom by Wimbledon champ Novak Djokovic. Boo for unscientific policy of banning visitors to US that already have natural immunity.”

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“The Russians end up with control of the Black Sea and probably the Ukraine bread-basket as well. So, now, Europe will starve and freeze.”

The Last Days of “Joe Biden” (Kunstler)

It’s like our country is trapped on one of those swirling carnival rides beloved of the county fairs… only, the felonious mutt who runs the ride has nodded off in a fentanyl delirium with the motor running at maximum speed… and the children-of-all-ages locked in the pods of this infernal machine shriek and vomit with each sickening rotation… as the half-century-old swing arms groan and wobble from metal fatigue on their squealing pivots… and suddenly comes a deafening crunch of gnashed gears, the smell of burning oil, and the pathetic whimpering of the nearly dead. That’s us. Some terrible midsummer accident-of-state has befallen the USA Carnival, and most are too dazed to know it. Whose idea was it to send the wind-up doll president called “Joe Biden” to Saudi Arabia?

I can just imagine what went on in the chamber in private with “JB” and MBS (Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman), virtual autocrat of the oil-soaked desert land. The American visitor muttered something about wanting an ice-cream cone before dropping into a catatonic thousand-yard stare. “How does this thing work?” MBS asks his chief vizier, the foreign minister (in Arabic, of course), gesticulating disdainfully at the ghostly figure sunk in the plush camel-hair armchair yards away. “Joe Biden” sits motionless. Someone has forgotten to rewind him, some “aide” who carries the president’s Adderall. Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud tells the boss, “We’ll make up some camel-dung for release to CNN and friends. They’ll fall for anything.” It’s like a crime scene where the forensic experts have entered. The Saudi leader and his entourage only hang around the room for three minutes until the US State Department shoots enough photos to prove that “JB” was there and not stuffed in the basement of his Delaware beach house for the weekend, as usual.

The American news media gets briefed: Saudi Arabia graciously agrees to bump up its oil production somewhere in the 2025-2027 time-frame — a triumph for US diplomacy, the networks are informed. Air Force One wings home through clouds of despair. The White House team members spend the flight updating their resumés. I think we have witnessed “Joe Biden’s” final appearance at any world-stage event. He can do no more for the Party of Chaos. It has done what it can to wreck the joint with him as the pretend head-of-state. The Ukraine gambit is a bust, a foolish miscalculation that was obvious from the start. All it accomplished was to reveal the pitiful dependence of our European allies on Russian oil and gas, leaving their economies good and truly scuppered without it. The Russians end up with control of the Black Sea and probably the Ukraine bread-basket as well. So, now, Europe will starve and freeze.

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Emmanuel Todd Lopez
https://twitter.com/i/status/1548832312741208071

 

 

 

 

Kung fu

 

 

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