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Debt Rattle March 12 2024

Mar 122024
 
 March 12, 2024  Posted by at 8:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Le moulin de la galette 1886

 

• Elite Units of Ukrainian Armed Forces Discuss Overthrowing Zelensky (Sp.)
• Pentagon’s ‘Ukrainian Fantasy’ Is Falling Apart – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
• Ukraine Already Bankrupt Long Ago – Former Prime Minister (TASS)
• Houthis ‘Schooling’ West in Asymmetric Warfare (Sp.)
• God Is Underwriting Israel’s Genocide Bond (Helmer)
• Chasing ‘Tactical’ Wins, Israel Now Faces ‘Strategic’ Defeat (Sweidan)
• White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibration (Alastair Crooke)
• Biden a ‘Rare Kind of Idiot’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Macron is a ‘Coward’ – Medvedev (RT)
• ‘Warmonger’ EU’s Defense Strategy a Wishful Dream (Sp.)
• EU Nuclear Umbrella to Embolden Member States to Use French Nukes (Sp.)
• Poland: the Biggest Army in the EU And the Biggest Risks in the Making (Babich)
• Eventual Financial Death Spiral Now Imminent – John Rubino (USAW)
• Global Hunger Isn’t The Worst Food-Related Threat To Humanity (Bridge)
• Nanoplastics Linked to an Increase in Heart Attacks And Strokes (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Kimmel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767014173391585295

 

 

Mace

 

 

Schiff Trump

 

 

 

 

Melania

 

 

Rogan X
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767284402143334811

 

 

 

 

Bannon Rickards

 

 

Tucker Cuomo

 

 

 

 

“Let’s demolish this green rat and install Zaluzhny!”

• Elite Units of Ukrainian Armed Forces Discuss Overthrowing Zelensky (Sp.)

Following the recent reshuffle in Ukraine’s military leadership, discontent is brewing among elite units, with discussions of ousting President Volodymyr Zelensky and reinstating Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief, a source has revealed to Sputnik. Commanders and soldiers in elite units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are dissatisfied with the reshuffle in the country’s military leadership and are seriously discussing the ousting of Volodymyr Zelensky, a representative of the Russian security services has told Sputnik. He explained that specialists had gained access to a closed Telegram channel called “ParaBelum,” which consists of radically-minded fighters from the elite units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“Our specialists have gained access to a resource in which members of various elite units, such as the Marines, special forces, intelligence, special forces of the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine], as well as various nationalist battalions, communicate. They are highly qualified specialists who are clearly dissatisfied with the change of command. They are seriously discussing options for overthrowing the current government and the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the interlocutor said. Based on the materials at the disposal of Sputnik, the soldiers express dissatisfaction with the actions of Zelensky and the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, who was appointed a month ago to replace Valery Zaluzhny. Thus, the commander of the reconnaissance group of Ukraine’s 80th Separate Air Assault Nrigade, Maxim Shevtsov, with the call sign “Winter,” calls on members of “ParaBelum” to overthrow Zelensky.

“If people don’t come to the defense of Zaluzhny, if the military doesn’t come to the defense of Zaluzhny, then this rat [Zelensky] will torpedo everyone… Let’s demolish this green rat and install Zaluzhny! In fact, it’s Zelensky who needs to be changed, not Zaluzhny. This rat feels that he has a zero rating, and Zaluzhny has a higher rating, and [this is why Zelensky] is trying to torpedo him,” a voice message from Shevtsov says. A recent poll by the Ukrainian Center for Social and Marketing Research SOCIS suggests that if the presidential election were held in Ukraine in 2024, former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny would secure a significant lead, with 41.4% of the first-round vote, surpassing Volodymyr Zelensky’s 23.7%. In the parliamentary scenario, Zaluzhny’s hypothetical bloc would lead with 46.4% of the vote, according to the same poll.

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“This is to buy time for a miracle to happen and the Ukrainians are hoping the miracle will be the arrival of a French battlegroup.”

• Pentagon’s ‘Ukrainian Fantasy’ Is Falling Apart – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

The US Pentagon’s fantasy in Ukraine is falling apart, former UN weapons inspector and commentator Scott Ritter told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday. Speaking on reports in US media that said there are growing tensions between Kiev and Washington because Ukraine reportedly did not listen to tactical advice offered by the Pentagon, Ritter said he believes the assertions are not based in reality but instead are designed to shift the blame away from the United States. “The Pentagon is definitely trying to create political cover for itself because their huge Ukrainian fantasy is falling apart,” Ritter asserted, explaining earlier that Ukraine had little choice but to hold Avdeyevka for as long as possible so that defensive lines could be built behind it, noting however, that Russian airpower prevented even that goal from being achieved.

“It’s easy to play armchair quarterback and just sit back there and pick apart. But the reality is what other choices [did] Ukrainians have but to try and hold onto the last defensible position they [had]?” The Kiev regime is “waking up to the reality that their so-called friends and allies are abandoning them and leaving Ukraine to its own fate” Ritter explained earlier while discussing Macron’s comments that French troops may be deployed in Ukraine, a hypothetical that Ritter says is only being discussed because of the position Ukraine is in. “To understand why Macron would be even talking about this, you have to understand how dire the situation is for Ukraine right now. They are facing military collapse, right now as we speak the last reserves of Ukraine are being thrown into the battle outside the village of Orlovka,” Ritter explained. “This is to buy time for a miracle to happen and the Ukrainians are hoping the miracle will be the arrival of a French battlegroup.”

That possible “miracle” would not change the outlook on the battlefield, Ritter argued, saying that their ability “to deploy a military meaningful force to Ukraine is very slim,” with or without the Baltic State allies Macron is reportedly seeking. Meanwhile, Ritter argues, the election season is forcing the United States to step back from the conflict. “Biden is in a presidential election cycle, we’re coming up on the final sprint to November. … Biden will do whatever is necessary to minimize his political exposure.” “We fired [Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs] Victoria Nuland, the architect of [the Ukraine] policy, and we [took] a step back.” That has left Europe “sitting there, realizing that, frankly speaking, they are nothing without American money. This is a hard pill to swallow and meanwhile, on the battlefield, the Ukrainian army is in absolutely desperate straits.”

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“..a highly telling stigma – ‘negative outlook,’ ‘a virtual certainty of default,’ ‘debt susceptible to non-payment..’”

• Ukraine Already Bankrupt Long Ago – Former Prime Minister (TASS)

Ukraine has long been completely insolvent, former Ukrainian Prime Minister (2010-2014) Nikolay Azarov said in commenting on the Standard & Poor’s rating agency’s downgrade of its credit rating on Ukraine’s sovereign debt to “junk” status. “Ukraine is fully insolvent. However, international agencies do not risk assigning it a default rating. Although Ukraine went bankrupt long ago,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. Earlier, S&P downgraded Ukraine from a “CCC” rating to “CC.” “Now the country’s long-term sovereign [debt] rating has received a highly telling stigma – ‘negative outlook,’ ‘a virtual certainty of default,’ ‘debt susceptible to non-payment,’” the former head of the Ukrainian government added.

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“..the Houthis “demonstrating in real time just how target-rich developed nations are..”

• Houthis ‘Schooling’ West in Asymmetric Warfare (Sp.)

The Yemeni militia has led a sustained campaign of ship seizures, drone and missile attacks against suspected Israeli-tied commercial vessels and Western warships operating in the Red Sea for nearly four months straight, with commercial freight volume through the strategic maritime chokepoint down as much as 80 percent. Ansar Allah, the Yemeni militia group also known as the Houthis, has “more surprises” in store for the US and Israel, and will continue its campaign of maritime attacks so long as Tel Aviv continues its brutal assault in Gaza and blocks humanitarian aid from getting through, leading Houthi figure Abdul Sattar Al-Nehmi has said. “We have a firm belief in our leadership and its decisions, which motivates us to continue these operations in support of our brothers in Gaza,” al-Nehmi said in an interview with local media. The official did not elaborate on the “surprises” Washington and Tel Aviv should expect, but stressed the maritime campaign will continue until the Houthis manage to “force” global powers to bring Israel to heel.

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi offered a tally of militia missile and drone attacks and ship seizures to date last week, saying 96 missile and drone attacks have been launched and 61 ships targeted so far amid the ongoing campaign. Separately on Monday, Bloomberg Middle East contributor Marc Champion warned that the Houthis have succeeded in “schooling” the West “in asymmetric warfare,” with neither the “extraordinary power of US carrier fleets,” nor attempts to “get tougher” by bombing the militia group succeeding in reining in Ansar Allah’s activities. “The first challenge is that advances in the production of missiles and drones have democratized extremely powerful weapons that until recently were available only to the richest states,” Champion wrote. “The second is a growing asymmetry of vulnerabilities,” with the Houthis “demonstrating in real time just how target-rich developed nations are,” and the US and its allies showing that they have much more to lose than humble Yemenis.

“When the Houthis disrupt the roughly 12% of global shipping that passes through the Bab al-Mandab Strait between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, it impacts consumers in Europe and manufacturers in Asia, but not Yemen. If oil tankers have to shift to longer, more expensive routes than the Suez Canal, nudging up the price of gasoline at US pumps, the Houthis will be much less affected,” the commentator emphasized. And that’s not to mention the “trillions of dollars” worth of information passing through the communications cables which lie at the bottom of the Red Sea, which Western media fear the Houthis might sabotage, or the “communications and the data that sophisticated militaries rely on to operate.” Champion urged Washington to “resist the temptation to escalate its fight with the Houthis,” and to prevent the situation from spinning even further out of control, as any “reliable success” against the militia would require a full-scale invasion or heavy bombardment – neither of which “would be remotely worth the cost.”

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“Israel’s public genocide is a private secret among Americans who are paying for it..”

• God Is Underwriting Israel’s Genocide Bond (Helmer)

Last week it happened that God and the United States Treasury managed to underwrite a record issue of Israel Government bonds to continue the war against the Arabs in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – and Iran if necessary. The war financing comprised $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10 and 30-year bonds. The US Treasury guarantees bond holders that if Israel defaults on repayment of its obligations, the US will pay instead. Notwithstanding this, the Israelis were obliged to offer an extra 1.35%, 1.45%, and 1.75% more in interest over the going rate for US Treasury bonds for the same length of term. The Reuters news agency headline on March 6 celebrated “Israel sells record $8 billion in bonds despite Oct 7 attacks, downgrade”. The propaganda agency based in New York quoted Israel’s Accountant-General as claiming the bond placement “results showed an “unprecedented expression of confidence in Israel’s economy by the world’s largest international investors”.*

In fact, according to well-informed bond trade sources in Europe, with the higher interest rates the market has just demanded from the Israelis, the spread between the Israel bonds and US Treasuries has never been wider, and the worse this spread will become for Israel. This is a vote of no-confidence from the market which the Israelis, the Americans, and their media are trying to keep secret. The longer the war is protracted, the more obvious the costs of Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) failure will become – and the deeper the negative bond sentiment will grow. By converting secrecy into money, the market is signalling that it has begun to turn against Israel – and profit at Israel’s expense. Also unprecedented is the secrecy in which the “expression of confidence” has been managed by the US, French, and German banks acting as managers of the Israeli bond issue; and of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has had regulatory oversight of the process.

The debt financing has been reported as a “private placement”; this has removed the requirement that the Israelis produce a public prospectus explaining how they think their war – plausibly genocide, according to the International Court of Justice in its ruling of January 26, 2024 – is going, and how long the IDF claim it will last. This does not remove the legal requirement on the two US banks engaged in marketing the bonds to US investors, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, to submit a formal application for SEC approval of what is called a letter of consent. However, asked to confirm the contents of the letter of consent application for the sale of the Israeli bonds, and its official approval, the SEC has refused to give any answer. Goldman Sachs was asked the same questions. The bank also refuses to say.

Last October the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon,* issued a personal letter to the bank’s employees claiming the Hamas operation was a “violation of fundamental human values”: Solomon then proposed a $2 million gift of bank funds “to organizations providing critical support and humanitarian relief in Israel”; plus additional bank money, three bank dollars for every one contributed by bank staff making donations under $25, and one for one if the staff contribution was over $25. Asked how much money has been raised for Solomon’s gift to the Israelis, the bank is refusing to reply. In other words, Israel’s public genocide is a private secret among Americans who are paying for it, and among US government officials responsible for regulating the scheme according to US law. According to well-informed bond traders, this deal-making is worth in fees to the dealmakers, led by Goldman Sachs, about $100 million.

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“Everyone can see the tactics that are used to defeat the enemy in war, but what no one can see is the strategy from which great victory arises.”

• Chasing ‘Tactical’ Wins, Israel Now Faces ‘Strategic’ Defeat (Sweidan)

In a fight like this, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you make them fall into the hands of the enemy, you turn tactical victory into strategic defeat. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued this warning to Israel back in December during his address at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. Drawing on hard-earned lessons from US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Austin stressed that winning battles on the ground does not guarantee a strategic victory and may even lead to a strategic defeat – if Israel refuses to look at the bigger picture. This is one of the main sources of Washington’s pressure on Tel Aviv, especially in light of the allies’ differing political visions for Gaza in the post-war period and the man-made humanitarian crisis Israel has imposed on the Strip. It’s a philosophy rooted in foresight, echoing Robert Greene’s wisdom from his 33 War Strategies: “Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has outlined two primary objectives for the Gaza war: dismantling Hamas’ military infrastructure and securing the release of prisoners detained since 7 October. Netanyahu later expanded on these objectives, adding a crucial third goal: ensuring Gaza’s inability to threaten the occupation state’s security in the future. Consequently, the success of Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza hinges on achieving these pivotal objectives. Despite their shared goals, disparities have emerged between the American and Israeli approaches. While both advocate for neutralizing Hamas, the Biden administration advocates for a more politically driven strategy, while Netanyahu seeks an almost entirely military-centric approach.

Hamas, on the other hand, announced three main objectives of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood immediately following the events of 7 October. First, success in conducting a prisoner exchange with the enemy entity. Second, retaliation against Israeli aggression in the occupied West Bank and safeguarding Al-Aqsa Mosque from settler extremists. Third, placing the Palestinian issue back on the global stage. Chinese General Sun Tzu’s timeless wisdom in his Art of War distinguishes between tactical maneuvers and strategic foresight: “Everyone can see the tactics that are used to defeat the enemy in war, but what no one can see is the strategy from which great victory arises.” In warfare, tactical objectives focus on short-term gains – specific engagements or territorial advances. In contrast, strategic goals require long-term vision, aligning military actions with political priorities. In essence, tactics look to answer the “how,” while strategy answers the “why” in military engagement, ultimately with a political endgame.

Any state or party to a conflict can achieve tactical objectives by excelling in battlefield maneuvers, using superior technology, or having better trained and equipped forces. But winning battles – that is, achieving tactical goals – does not necessarily mean winning the war. This discrepancy occurs because the cumulative effect of tactical victories may not align with or contribute adequately to broader strategic objectives. While tactics are essential to winning battles, they must be used as part of a strategy aimed at achieving the ultimate goals of war. History offers several sobering reminders of the perils of prioritizing tactics over strategy. For example, in the Vietnam War, the US achieved numerous tactical victories yet failed strategically. Despite inflicting heavy losses, the broader goal of fostering a non-communist South Vietnam remained elusive. The US’s longest war, in Afghanistan against the Taliban, ended in another humiliating withdrawal, only for the Taliban to return to unprecedented political power across the country.

Esteemed Israeli historian and critic of Zionism, Ilan Pappe, believes that the failures of the genocidal war on Gaza will ultimately lead to the downfall of the Zionist entity, with the war being the most perilous chapter in the “history of a project fighting for its existence.”

Yanis

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“Like Florida, [a] key state, where the votes of the Jews can decide who will move into the White House, so too can the votes of the Muslims in Michigan decide … ”

• White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibration (Alastair Crooke)

Alon Pinkas, a former senior Israeli diplomat, well-plugged into Washington, tells us that a frustrated White House finally has “had enough”. The rupture with Netanyahu is complete: The Prime Minister does not comport himself as ‘an U.S. ally’ should; he severely criticises Biden’s Middle East policies, and now the United States has come to understand this fact. Biden cannot afford any further Israel-affects to jeopardise his electoral campaign, and so – as his State of the Union Speech makes clear – he will double-down on misconstrued policy frameworks for both Israel and Ukraine. So what does Biden intend to do about Netanyahu’s act of defiance against the ‘holy grail’ of U.S. policy recommendations? Well, he invited Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet to Washington, and wrapped him around an agenda “reserved for a prime minister, or someone they think will, or should be, premier”. Officials apparently thought that by initiating a visit outside of usual diplomatic protocols, they may “have unleashed a dynamic that could lead to an election in Israel”, Pinkas notes, resulting in a leadership more amenable to U.S. ideas.

It was clearly intended as a first step to ‘soft power’ régime change. And the prime reason for the declaration of war on Netanyahu? Gaza. Biden apparently didn’t appreciate the snub received in the Michigan primary when the Gaza protest vote surpassed 100,000 ‘uncommitted votes’. Polls – especially amongst the young – are flashing red warning signals for November (in no small part because of Gaza). Democratic national leaders are beginning to worry. Leading Israeli commentator, Nahum Barnea, warns that Israel is “loosing America”: “We are accustomed to thinking of America in familial terms … We receive weapons and international backing and the Jews give their votes in the key states and money to the campaigns. This time, the situation is different … Since the votes in [presidential] elections are counted regionally, only a few states … actually decide … Like Florida, [a] key state, where the votes of the Jews can decide who will move into the White House, so too can the votes of the Muslims in Michigan decide …

“[Activists] called on the primary voters to vote “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s support for Israel … Their campaign succeeded beyond expectations: 130,000 Democratic voters supported it. The slap in the face to Biden reverberated across the entire length and breadth of the political establishment. It not only attested to the rise of a new, efficient and toxic political lobby, [but] also to the revulsion that many Americans feel when they see the pictures from Gaza”. “Biden loves Israel and is truly afraid for it”, concludes Barnea “but he has no intention of losing the elections because of it. That is an existential threat”. The problem however, is the converse: It is that U.S. policy is deeply flawed, and wholly incongruent with majority public sentiment in Israel. Many Israelis feel they are fighting an existential struggle, and must not become ‘just fodder’ (as they see it) to a U.S. Democratic electoral strategy. The reality is that Israel is rupturing with Team Biden – not the converse.

Biden’s key plan which rests on a revitalised Palestinian security apparatus is described – even in the Washington Post – as ‘improbable’. The U.S. tried a PA security ‘revitalising’ initiative under U.S. General Zinni in 2002 and Dayton in 2010. It did not work – and for good reason: Palestinian Authority security forces are simply viewed by most Palestinians as the hated stooges enforcing continued Israeli occupation. They work to Israeli security interests, not Palestinian security interests. The other main components to U.S. policy is an even more improbable ‘de-radicalised’ and anaemic ‘two-state solution’, buried within a regional concert of conservative Arab States acting as its security overseer. This policy approach reflects a White House out of kilter with today’s more eschatological Israel, and one failing to move on from perspectives and policies hailing from decades past which, even then, were failures. The White House therefore has resorted to an old trick: To project all of its own policy failings onto a foreign leader for not making the ‘unworkable’ work, and to try to replace that leader with someone more compliant. Pinkas writes:

“Once the United States became convinced that Netanyahu was not being cooperative, not being a considerate ally, behaving like a crude ingrate … focused only on his political survival after the October 7 debacle, the time was ripe to try a new political course”. However, Netanyahu’s policy – for better or worse – reflects what a majority of Israelis think. Netanyahu has his well-known personality defects and is seriously unpopular in Israel, yet that does not mean that a plurality disagrees with his, and his government’s programme. So “enter Gantz”, unleashed by Team Biden as prospective PM-in-waiting into the Washington and London diplomatic pool.

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1766847857460437487

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“..Biden’s recent blunder in which he mixed up Ukraine and the Middle East sums up his poor mental state..”

• Biden a ‘Rare Kind of Idiot’ – Medvedev (RT)

US President Joe Biden’s recent blunder in which he mixed up Ukraine and the Middle East sums up his poor mental state, former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. Biden’s gaffe came in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, as he discussed the Israeli military campaign in Gaza with host Jonathan Capehart. The US leader said West Jerusalem should not repeat the mistakes that Washington made following the September 2001 terrorist attacks. “America made a mistake. We went after Osama bin Laden until we got him, but we shouldn’t have gone into Ukraine,” Biden stated. He then corrected himself, saying he meant “the whole thing in Iraq and Afghanistan,” referring to the US invasions and occupation of the two Middle Eastern nations. Confusing places and people has been a recurring issue for the 81-year-old president. Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, posted a short clip of the gaffe on Sunday on social media, adding: “A rare kind of idiot.”

Some Russian officials have suggested that Biden’s slip of the tongue was Freudian. “He didn’t mix it up. He can no longer keep to himself what everyone understands – the US has disgraced itself in the bloodiest manner with the whole Ukrainian project,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Moscow perceives the Ukraine conflict as a US-led proxy war against Russia, in which Ukrainian soldiers serve as ‘cannon fodder’. The Russian military estimated that by the end of February, Kiev’s military losses had reached 444,000. In the nine-minute interview with MSNBC, Biden mentioned Ukraine once, calling out former President Donald Trump for his skeptical attitude towards NATO. The incumbent leader described the organization as “critical to our national defense.” Moscow has cited the expansion of the military bloc in Europe as a key cause of the hostilities with Ukraine.

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“Macron preparing to visit Kiev? But he’s a zoological coward!”

• Macron is a ‘Coward’ – Medvedev (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed his visit to Ukraine because he is a pathological coward, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. The Elysee Palace announced on Monday that Macron’s long-awaited visit to Ukraine will take place sometime “in the coming weeks.” The announcement marks the third delay of the French leader’s visit to Ukraine. Macron had initially planned to visit Kiev to sign a bilateral security agreement last month, but the document ended up being signed during Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s trip to Paris. “Macron preparing to visit Kiev? But he’s a zoological coward!” Medvedev posted in French on X (formerly Twitter), recommending that Macron’s office pack “several changes of underwear” and prepare for a “strong stink.”

Medvedev claimed that he originally wrote the message in the morning, but by the time he decided to post it – the French president had already “s**t himself” and pulled out of the planned visit. “Poor France!” he added. Instead of hurrying to Kiev, Macron wants to “take the necessary time” for talks with allies to be able to visit Ukraine “with tangible results,” Politico wrote on Monday, citing an anonymous French diplomat. In recent weeks, the French president has escalated his hawkish rhetoric towards Russia, suggesting in late February that sending Western troops to Ukraine cannot be ruled out. Last Tuesday in Prague, he called on European nations to step up support for Kiev amid the Ukraine-Russia conflict, saying Europe is facing times “where it will be appropriate not to be a coward.”

NATO members are seeking to boost military aid to Kiev amid worries that funding from Ukraine’s biggest war sponsor – the US – will dry up. Earlier this year, the White House said that Washington had used up all the money allocated to Ukraine thus far – more than $113 billion. An additional $60 billion in US funding is still being held up in Congress, although recently it was suggested that the money should be loaned to Kiev, rather than given away. Moscow maintains that Western military aid to Ukraine does little to alter the course of the conflict, while extending the hostilities and causing needless deaths. Commenting on Macron’s words regarding the possibility of deploying Western troops to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that doing so would make a direct clash between NATO and Russia “inevitable.”

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“The EU, whose initial vocation as a peacemaker in Europe has completely slipped and transformed into a warmonger..”

• ‘Warmonger’ EU’s Defense Strategy a Wishful Dream (Sp.)

The European Commission’s newly proposed strategy to coordinate its military industries to tackle the “existential threat” posed by Russia is, above all, a pipe dream, Colonel Jacques Hogard, who served 26 years in the French Army as an airborne officer in the Foreign Legion and the special forces, told Sputnik. “The EU, whose initial vocation as a peacemaker in Europe has completely slipped and transformed into a warmonger, is seeking to exist, in the face of the visible disengagement of the United States in Ukraine. It clumsily tries to find a way out of the trap into which the Americans have made it fall. But in reality, ‘defense Europe’ is a dream. Born from a desire to bring the Franco-German couple together, this dream has never had the slightest beginning of concrete realization,” Hogard stated.

The pundit elaborated by pointing to the TIGER III, MAWS, and CIFS programs that were all successively “abandoned by Berlin, either to adopt purely German solutions or to turn to American equipment.” The remaining two programs – SCAF (Future Combat Air System) and MGCS (Main Ground Combat System) – were plagued by “disagreements over the distribution of roles between German and French industries.” “These programs were pushed through under pressure from politicians, without their future being assured,” Jacques Hogard said. Continuing to support Ukraine militarily has left European countries’ existing stocks depleted, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell admitted in his latest blog post. He urged moving “from an emergency mode to a longer-term vision, in a new strategy would allow the EU to be able to “replenish our stocks and develop the defense capabilities,” while continuing to provide “adequate military support to Ukraine.”

“To strengthen our defense in a tense geopolitical context, we urgently need to overcome the fragmentation of our defense industry through more joint procurement and more common projects,” he wrote. The blog post further elaborated on the new European Defense Industrial Strategy recently unveiled by Brussels. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, touted its plan worth around €1.5 billion (US $1.6 billion) as a way to turbocharge the bloc’s military-industrial sector. The strategy is geared to reduce the EU member states’ dependence on the US for defense needs. Procurement outside the bloc was declared “no longer sustainable.” The plans will need to be approved by the European Parliament and by member countries, who are already squabbling over military and weapons spending on Ukraine aid.

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“..Macron effectively offered to share French nuclear weapons. “These statements by Macron are extremely serious..”

• EU Nuclear Umbrella to Embolden Member States to Use French Nukes (Sp.)

The idea of the EU’s nuclear umbrella could lead to other countries using France’s nuclear potential, even though France might not be under any threat, the leader of France’s Patriots party and candidate for the European Parliament elections, Florian Philippot, told RIA Novosti. Earlier in the year, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Paris had a responsibility to defend the European Union. He added that France’s interests had a European dimension, which gave Paris a special responsibility that, in particular, affects French deterrence capabilities. The assertion, Filippot said, means that Macron effectively offered to share French nuclear weapons. “These statements by Macron are extremely serious. This is what should be the first guarantee of national sovereignty, nuclear weapons, which you need in case your vital interests are in danger, this is what nuclear doctrine is all about, the same for all nuclear powers. And what he is saying means that if tomorrow Poland is at war with Russia, it can use nuclear weapons while we are not in danger, we are not at war. And if tomorrow Ukraine becomes part of the EU, we could potentially let Ukraine use it, that’s completely insane,” the politician said.

Such statements indicate that the French president is not guided by the country’s national interest, he added. “Behind this is also pressure from Germany to get our nuclear weapons. They have long been willing to invest financially in our nuclear weapons in exchange for jointly controlling them. This is where the demand that France makes for Germany or the EU to take a place among the permanent members of the UN Security Council comes from. This goes hand in hand,” Philippot said. In February, European Parliament Vice-President Katarina Barley said in an interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper that the creation of the EU’s own nuclear umbrella to replace the US umbrella could become a topic of discussion at the European level. At the same time, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner spoke in favor of greater cooperation with France and the United Kingdom on nuclear deterrence.

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““NATO is acting like a fireman, who sets on fire more and more buildings in order to show the community how much it needs him..”

• Poland: the Biggest Army in the EU And the Biggest Risks in the Making (Babich)

The Polish ministers love surprises. This week, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stunned the public when he said “several NATO countries already have their troops in Ukraine.” Sikorski represents the pro-EU “liberal” party Civic Platform, which recently replaced the “anti-European” nationalists from the Law and Justice (PiS) party. By voicing the shocking remark, Sikorski was effectively attempting to outdo the media star of the previous cabinet formed by the PiS. That media star was Mariusz Blaszczak, the former minister of defense who promised Poland would have “the strongest army in Europe” in two years In fact, Sikorski’s statement about NATO troops in Ukraine was not much of a secret for Russia. Even Sikorski’s attempt to create intrigue by saying he would not reveal the troops’ countries of origin was a failure. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of Russia’s Foreign Ministry, acknowledged that Russia knew about the presence of Western servicemen and which countries they came from.

She said: “It does not make sense for NATO to deny it’s sending soldiers to Ukraine any more.” However, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius again denied the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine recently, in this way one more time exposing himself or Sikorski as a liar. Sikorski made his revelation about NATO troops at a celebration devoted to the 25th anniversary of Poland joining the NATO alliance alongside Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999. In his speech, Sikorski also said that sending Western troops to Ukraine was a “creative” move, and that “the West should pursue the policy of asymmetrical escalation” in Ukraine. Through the official’s commentary and by ignoring Russia’s warnings of the inevitable retaliation for the escalation, Sikorski is – again – following in Blaszczak’s footsteps. It was under him that Poland, indeed, became Europe’s fastest growing military power, and the Civic Platform does not show any willingness to stop the project.

According to official data from Blaszczak’s defense ministry, in 2023 alone, Poland bought 1,000 K2 tanks from South Korea and 673 K9 howitzers from the same supplier. From the United States, Poland purchased 366 Abrams tanks and 32 F-35A fighter jets. “If Blaszczak’s plans are fulfilled, by 2030 Poland will have more tanks than the combined forces of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium,” the Wall Street Journal reported in an article headlined, “Poland Hardens Its Defenses Against Russia.” In 2023, Poland spent $ 23 billion on defense purposes, a sum that makes up 4% of the country’s GDP against the NATO-required 2%. But is spending tens of billions of dollars from a poor country’s budget for preparations of war against the historically and ethnically close eastern neighbor a wise policy? Not so, say cooler heads. “NATO is acting like a fireman, who sets on fire more and more buildings in order to show the community how much it needs him,” Mateusz Piskorski, a well known journalist and former leader of Zmiana party, told Sputnik.

In Piskorski’s opinion, NATO and Polish aggressive elite bear at least a part of the responsibility for the fire which is now devouring Ukraine. Ironically, these same elites point to Ukraine as the proof of Russia’s belligerence. These same Polish elites try to talk Poles into spending more money on arms for Ukraine and on increasing the power of the native Polish army. Blaszczak’s plan was to increase the staff of the Polish army from the current 172,000 men to 300,000. The timeframe for the reform is intended to proceed between two and three years, and this is one of the few initiatives of the outgoing PiS party, which the new “liberal” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk promises to continue.

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“You will get these massive bank runs that the government will have to step in and bail out. This is one of many things that will happen in the not-so-distant future..”

• Eventual Financial Death Spiral Now Imminent – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino warned nearly four months ago of a “U.S. Financial Death Spiral.” This past week, Bank of America caught up to Rubino and issued a warning about a “US dollar death spiral” because the federal government was going deeper in the red by creating “$1 trillion in new debt every 100 days.” Maybe this is why gold and Bitcoin have been hitting new all-time highs day after day. Rubino says, “When a building was worth $200 million and someone sells it for $48 million, that means there is a loss that someone has to take. Those losses are mostly on the books of regional and local banks. So, they are in big trouble financially. . . . You will get these massive bank runs that the government will have to step in and bail out. This is one of many things that will happen in the not-so-distant future. This will impact government finances in a scary way that will send people’s attention to the currency. In other words, if we have another $3 trillion bailout on top of everything else that’s going on . . .what is that going to do to the dollar? . . . .

Currencies are being inflated away with all these bailouts, deficits, wars and all these things that are going on that are bad for the currency. So, people start selling government bonds, which push up interest rates and blows up even more bad real estate and paper . . . until you get a debt spiral, a real live financial death spiral than cannot be fixed. . . . I was talking to a real estate guy the other day, and he said this is not just inevitable, it is imminent. It is happening now. It is happening quickly, and it is going to hit the headlines. . . . In this case, what is inevitable in commercial real estate is also looking imminent.” Rubino goes on to say, “The numbers are not lost on the guys running the big investment banks and the big media outlets. They are sitting around, and they are thinking we have to say something about this because this is obviously a very big financial story. So, we have to report on it. Finally, the numbers have gotten big enough with the deficits and government interest costs . . . that this is a story that cannot be ignored anymore.

“It’s got to be pretty far along before they reach that point because they really don’t want to report on this. To report on this is seen as a betrayal of the establishment, and they are part of the establishment. They are playing on that team. The debt numbers are finally big enough that they can’t be ignored anymore, and that implies that we are getting near the end of the road.” Gold and Bitcoin both hit all-time new highs this past week. What does it mean? Rubino explains, “This means the market is speaking, and it’s concluding these currencies have a problem. Capital is flowing into the alternatives. It’s flowing into the old kind of money that has held up for thousands of years like gold or the possible new kind of money like Bitcoin that has come on relatively recently (when compared to gold). . . . In either case, it is a vote against the dollar. When gold and Bitcoin are both spiking, it is a big vote of no confidence in the dollar.”

In closing, Rubino says, “There is no way to know how this plays out in the next six months, but this should terrify the central banks. By the way, the big central banks are behaving as if they are terrified because they are aggressively buying gold. They have bought about 1,000 tons of gold in each of the last two years. 1,000 tons is a fourth of the gold that comes out of all the gold mines in a given year. So, that is a major purchase, and they take the gold off the market. They don’t turn around and sell it. They put it away as a reserve asset. The gold is effectively disappearing. This makes the market even tighter, and this is also part of the reason why gold is going up.”

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Obesity. “It probably comes as no surprise that the same people who demand their food fast and fried, will also expect an easy cure as well..”

• Global Hunger Isn’t The Worst Food-Related Threat To Humanity (Bridge)

World Obesity Day was marked this week and, with over a billion people afflicted worldwide, obesity is now considered more dangerous to global health than hunger. The numbers are staggering. Sometime in the mid-20th century a cameraman captured an unforgettable black-and-white photo depicting thousands of American sunworshippers crowded onto Coney Island, New York City. What is most conspicuous about the iconic photograph, aside from the sheer number of beachgoers, is the lack of excessive cellulite packed into the assorted bathing suits and bikinis. Sadly and not a little tragically, those halcyon days are over. While hunger overwhelmingly afflicts the poverty-stricken nations of the world, obesity represents a unique type of affliction in that it targets both rich and poor alike. Between 1990 and 2022, global obesity rates quadrupled for children and doubled for adults, according to a new study by the Lancet (The World Health Organization classifies obesity as having a body-mass index equal to or greater than 30 kilograms per square meter).

In the WHO’s top-ten ‘hefty’ list, it may come as some surprise that the tiny Polynesian nations of Tonga and American Samoa had the highest prevalence of obesity in 2022 for women, while American Samoa and [nearby] Nauru had the highest rates among men. In those picturesque island paradises, more than 60% of the adult population were clinically obese. Other surprises included Egypt, weighing in at number ten in the female category, while Qatar took tenth place in boys’ obesity levels. Among the wealthy countries, the United States was the heavyweight representative and is tenth in the world for obesity among men. Shockingly, the US adult obesity rate increased from 21.2% in 1990 to 43.8% in 2022 for women, and from 16.9% to 41.6% in 2022 for men, placing the nation of 330 million fast-food consumers 36th in the world for highest obesity rates among women and, for men, tenth in the world.

By contrast, the adult obesity rate in the United Kingdom increased from 13.8% in 1990 to 28.3% in 2022 among females, ranking it 87th highest in the world, while the obesity rate for males surged from 10.7% to 26.9%, placing Britain at 55th. Among children, the study found the US obesity rates increased from 11.6% in 1990 to 19.4% in 2022 for girls, 11.5% to 21.7% for boys. In 2022, the US ranked 22nd in the world for obesity among girls, 26th for boys. Considering the rapid rates of change among Americans, the US will be predictably dominating the charts in just a few years, creating what could be considered a national emergency. None of this should have been unpredictable. After all, what does a society expect that can’t even park the car and walk several steps into the restaurant? And it’s not like consumers are ordering homemade soup and salads at the drive-thru window.

The junk food served at fast food enterprises is loaded with sodium content in order to prolong its shelf life, as well as saturated fatty acids that increase cholesterol levels in the body, clog the blood vessels and restrict normal blood flow, leading to heart disease. And that’s not even mentioning the high-fructose corn syrup found in the cola drinks. The real challenge, however, is how to combat obesity at a time when so many people have become addicted to a sedentary, order-online lifestyle. It probably comes as no surprise that the same people who demand their food fast and fried, will also expect an easy cure as well.

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“Researchers are curious as to how 40% of the participants showed no evidence of microplastics in their plaques, given that microplastics are ubiquitous..”

• Nanoplastics Linked to an Increase in Heart Attacks And Strokes (Sp.)

Roughly a week ago it was reported that boiling one’s water could help reduce the amount of microplastics in it by nearly 90%, as long as that water is hard water. At the time, scientists were still studying the extent to which nanoplastics could cause harm to one’s body. A new study says that people with nanoplastics inside their bodies are 4.5 times more likely to suffer from a heart attack, stroke or die of other health related concerns over the next three years than people without them, scientists say. The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and explained how micro- and nanoplastics (NMPs) are “emerging” as a potential risk factor when assessing cardiovascular disease. It is the first time that such a connection has been made.

Nanoplastics are tiny bits of plastic that can be as small as one-thousandth of a millimeter in diameter, though the definition applies to any small plastic piece that is less than five millimeters long in length. They are ubiquitous, long-lasting, and often require centuries to break down. But cells responsible for removing waste products can’t readily degrade them, so microplastics accumulate in organisms. These NMPs, about the size of a virus, are the perfect size to adversely affect how human cells function, and are capable of passing through key protective filters in one’s body including the intestinal lining and blood brain barrier. They have also been found in our food, breast milk and even the clouds in our skies. The researchers studied a group of patients who were already scheduled to undergo surgery for a condition known as carotid artery stenosis, which occurs when the carotid arteries—the main blood vessels that carry blood and oxygen to the brain—become narrowed after plaque, or fatty deposits, block normal blood flow. These arteries typically help supply blood to the brain, face and neck.

The researchers looked at plaque that was removed from 256 patients and tracked their health for an average of 34 months following the surgery. They found plastic particles, many of which were NMPs in the plaque of 150 patients—about 60%. At the follow-up, nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause occurred in 20% of those patients and in 7.5% of the patients without detectable plastic particles. Chemical analyses showed that a majority of the particles were composed of either polyethylene, which is commonly used and is often found in food packaging, shopping bags and medical tubing. [..] Researchers are curious as to how 40% of the participants showed no evidence of microplastics in their plaques, given that microplastics are ubiquitous. One of the study’s co-authors says it could be that the participants behave differently or have different biological pathways for processing plastics, however, more research is needed.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Antikythera

 

 

Tigers

 

 

Leopard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767174087397253234

 

 

Adopted

 

 

 

 

Best life
https://twitter.com/i/status/1766933626250555510

 

 

Best lives

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 9 2024

Jan 092024
 
 January 9, 2024  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  75 Responses »


René Magritte Youth 1924

 

• Ukraine Has Lost 500,000 Troops – Ex Prosecutor General (RT)
• Ukraine May Resort to Printing Money if Western Cash Dries Up (Sp.)
• Russia Must Be Asia’s Peace Maker (Hayes)
• Poland Covered Up For Nord Stream Attackers – WSJ (RT)
• Biden Refills Strategic Petroleum Reserve At Twice The Historic Average (Sp.)
• Biden Is Asking For Mexican Help To Stop The Record Surge Of Migrants (NBC)
• 27 States File to Oppose Colorado’s Disqualification of Trump (Turley)
• Donald Trump Will Attend Tuesday Arguments For Immunity Motion In J6 Case (PM)
• Trump Co-Defendant: Improper Relationship Between Georgia DA, Prosecutor (NYP)
• Musk Responds To WSJ ‘Hit Piece’ (RT)
• Hunter Biden Contempt Resolutions Introduced In House (ZH)
• Most Germans Want Scholz To Step Down – Poll (RT)
• House Freedom Caucus Slams Speaker Johnson’s Proposed Spending Deal (JTN)
• “It’s Okay to Be Fat” and Obesity Should be “Normalized” (MN)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Jan 6

 

 

Riveted
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744415213053522390

 

 

Biden plagiarism

 

 

“They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.”
– Tacitus

 

 

 

 

To achieve what?

• Ukraine Has Lost 500,000 Troops – Ex Prosecutor General (RT)

Ukraine’s leaders should frankly admit that they have lost 500,000 service members since the start of the conflict with Russia, and that the monthly casualty rate is at around 30,000, former prosecutor general Yury Lutsenko has said. President Vladimir Zelensky’s goverment could convince reluctant citizens to join the fight by publicly admitting the heavy losses on the battlefield and declaring that the country’s very existence is in jeopardy, he believes. Ukrainians “must know how many have died, and then all debates about the mobilization will be settled,” he added. Speaking to the country’s media on Wednesday, the former official proposed a number of steps to address the draft-dodging and corruption that is hampering the country’s conscription efforts.

He suggested that new legislation must be introduced by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the country’s defense minister, and top army general to emphasize the seriousness of the situation. “They should say how many Ukrainians have died. I know that this news will be received badly. But there is no other way to bring out of the comfort zone millions of those who hide behind bogus stories that everyone can serve except me,” Lutsenko said. According to Lutsenko, this “shock” would lead to large queues at recruitment offices, as had occurred in February 2022. Another important measure, according to the former official, would be the campaign to send members of the Ukrainian elite to the frontline.

“The army should not be all workers and peasants. Everyone should fight for Ukraine,” he stated, arguing that this would encourage ordinary citizens who he said have a very strong sense of justice. Zelensky said in December that the Ukrainian military had asked him to mobilize another 450,000 or 500,000 soldiers to make up for battlefield losses. Later that month, the government introduced a mobilization bill proposing to lower the recruitment age from 27 to 25 and eliminate exemptions for some categories of disabled people. The initiative comes after Ukraine launched a large counteroffensive in early June, which failed to gain any substantial ground. Moscow has described Kiev’s losses as catastrophic, estimating them at around 160,000 since the start of the push. Ukraine, however, has been reluctant to officially publish data on its casualties.

Ukr TV
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744313678021660797

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“The West reportedly pays for a whopping 70 percent of the Ukrainian government’s expenses..”

• Ukraine May Resort to Printing Money if Western Cash Dries Up (Sp.)

The Wall Street Journal has crunched some numbers on the Ukrainian crisis and concluded that Ukraine might have to resort to drastic measures if Western support stops flowing. Pointing to “dwindling” Western financial assistance; lesser interest in continuing to fund the proxy crisis; and Russia outguning Ukraine militarily and economically, the outlet warned that “without sufficient support, Ukraine may have to resort to painful spending cuts or even printing money to fill its deficit” to keep the lights on and the war effort going. Such a policy “would pose a grave risk to the health of its economy,” the newspaper said, hinting at the danger of hyperinflation which traditionally hits countries that print money to try to fill budget gaps.

The analysis likewise showed that Russia’s military budget and weapons manufacturing capacity has expanded dramatically. On the other hand, Ukraine’s production has been stagnant since 2022 and today is “no match for a much larger Russian military-industrial complex running at full steam.” The study found, for example, that Russian forces are presently producing and using five times more shells than Ukraine on the front. Politically too, the paper’s analysis pointed to dropping support for the proxy war in both the US and Europe. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, there have been “some declines” in “trust levels” for President Zelensky’s government. Internal polling conducted late last year found Zelensky’s approval rating had sunk to just 32 percent.

US lawmakers have been wrangling with the White House over President Biden’s request to commit another $61 billion in military backing to Kiev. Ukrainian officials have admitted they “don’t have a plan B” if the support, which they insist is “not charity” but “an investment in the protection of NATO,” falls through. In Europe also, deliveries of fresh military and economic support have dropped dramatically in recent months, with the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker showing nearly a 90 percent drop in Western assistance overall between August and October 2023 compared to the same period a year earlier. Western officials have repeatedly warned that Ukraine would be “certain to fail” without a renewed IV drip of financial and military support – confirming nearly two years of statements by Russian officials that the NATO-backed regime would collapse without Western backing.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister warned last month that salary and pension delays were imminent if Western support was not immediately forthcoming. At the front, foreign mercenaries have reportedly been trickling out of the country after payments to them were halted and they found more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. The West reportedly pays for a whopping 70 percent of the Ukrainian government’s expenses, with Kiev racking up a record-high debt of $157 billion in 2023 – less than ten percent shy of the 100 percent of GDP mark. Debt is forecast to grow precipitously in the coming years, reaching up to $313 billion by 2028.

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“Contrary to what our Nazi-saluting, cat-strangling, welfare cheque-cashing friends in Kiev might think, there is no other power beside Russia in a position to get all sides in Asia to come together to cool things down..”

• Russia Must Be Asia’s Peace Maker (Hayes)

Although China and its adversaries have a number of symmetric and asymmetric options available to them that range from Nordstream style no claim no blame attacks on hostile shipping to blowing up, in pre-emptive strikes, the Three Gorges Dam and thereby drowning the 1 billion or so Chinese unfortunates who live in the Lower Yanzgtse Valley, outside the lunatic asylums of Washington, most of those are not realistic choices. That said, China’s reaction to the results of Taiwan’s pending 13 January elections might bring unwanted fireworks to bear on what already is a tense tinderbox. Should William Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president and the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), prevail over Hou Yu-ih from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Party, China will most likely spit the dummy again and launch massive military drills around the island or even grab Penghu Island as a sign it is serious about subjugating Taiwan.

Though China certainly carries a big stick, it doesn’t yet seem to grasp the notion that one should speak softly and only wave or use the stick as a last recourse. That is where the diplomats of Russia, which currently chairs the loose and untested BRIICS alliance, comes in. As a long standing ally of Vietnam, China and India, and as one which understands the nuanced goals of all three of those countries, Russia can bring a lot to the table. Not only did Russia help broker peace in the 1965 2nd Kashmir war between Pakistan and India but Russia fully understands that India and Vietnam both want strategic autonomy, and that neither will ever submit to being a vassal of a revanchist China. Taiwan currently leads the world in the crucial field of semiconductors and that is unlikely to change any time soon.

And nor is Taiwan’s status as, for Taiwan to revert to the 1683-1895 era when it paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty, would mean empowering China to annex the entire region as Imperial Japan did in late 1941 from its Taiwanese/Formosan base. Because Japan, India, Vietnam and even the Philippines cannot accept that, China is thereby opening up the door for NATO’s carrier groups and sundry other legacy defence systems and that is far from being an optimal state of affairs if peace and trade, rather than war and all it entails are the goals. There are two or even three ways out of this morass, only one of which is really acceptable. The first of these is to duke it out across the Taiwan Strait and every other strait or reef that is deemed important along the String of Pearls from Siberia to Somalia.

The second way is for China to goose step ahead with its neomercantalism until the global economy revolves around it and it alone. The third and best way is for the BRIICS and allied countries to take the opportunity Russia’s chairmanship of that group offers and chart some way through all the straits and reefs they might sink or run aground on. Contrary to what our Nazi-saluting, cat-strangling, welfare cheque-cashing friends in Kiev might think, there is no other power beside Russia in a position to get all sides in Asia to come together to cool things down. And, because there is still a pivotal role not only for diplomacy but for those like Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and his standing army of fellow Russian diplomats who retain those vital skills the West so stupidly jettisoned, there still mind be time to avoid this looming Armageddon of the Eastern Seas and all it entails.

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The story of the little yacht must be kept alive. It is used to cast doubt on US involvement.

• Poland Covered Up For Nord Stream Attackers – WSJ (RT)

Polish officials have withheld evidence and attempted to stall an international probe into the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, making investigators “suspicious of Warsaw’s role and motives,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas lines – which linked Russia with Germany through the Baltic Sea – were destroyed in a series of explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022. A joint inquiry by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden is ongoing, with investigators theorizing that a Ukrainian team rented a yacht in Germany from a Polish company, which they used to transport explosives to the blast sites. When these alleged leads were chaned in Poland, investigators were stonewalled by government officials and law enforcement agents, the Journal reported, citing sources within the investigation.

Polish authorities failed to turn over testimony from eyewitnesses who allegedly encountered the yacht’s six-person crew in the Polish port of Kolobrzeg until pushed to do so by German police, the sources said. CCTV footage from the port was then withheld, and Poland’s internal security agency, the ABW, “failed to answer queries, obfuscated or gave contradictory information,” the newspaper stated. Polish prosecutors said they found no traces of explosives on the yacht, despite never having boarded it to check, the investigators claimed. The investigation would later find explosive residue on the vessel, according to media reports. The prosecutors reportedly told European investigators that the boat arrived in Kolobrzeg at 4pm September 19, when it actually moored seven hours earlier. Later in the investigation, the ABW told its sister agencies in Europe that the yacht “had links with Russian espionage,” the newspaper reported, adding that investigators considered this “disinformation.”

According to all available information, no Western governments or intelligence agencies suspect that Russia was behind the bombings. Gas sold to Europe via the Nord Stream lines was a lucrative source of revenue for Moscow, and was seen as a powerful instrument of leverage for the Kremlin. Poland’s efforts to hinder the investigators have made them “increasingly suspicious of Warsaw’s role and motives,” the Wall Street Journal noted. All of the alleged misdirection and obfuscation took place under Poland’s previous government, however, and unnamed “senior European officials” told the newspaper that they are considering contacting Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, in the hope that he will grant them access to police and security personnel who may have previously been pressured to stay silent.

According to an alternate theory put forward by American journalist Seymour Hersh, the CIA was responsible for the Nord Stream blasts. Citing sources within the intelligence community, Hersh argued that CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy planted remotely-triggered bombs on the lines last summer, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. Bolstering this theory was a tweet by former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who within hours of the explosions shared an image of a giant gas leak at the blast site along with the caption “Thank you, USA.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has backed this explanation, stating last month that the sabotage operation “was done, most likely, by the Americans or someone at their instruction.”

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“They could have picked up several hundred million barrels at $15, but because it was what President Trump wanted, Congress said no..”

“..it will take a whopping 75 months to bring the SPR back to the level at which it was before US President Joe Biden started draining it..”

“..the Biden administration is buying oil at twice the historic average to replenish the SPR..”

• Biden Refills Strategic Petroleum Reserve At Twice The Historic Average (Sp.)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is currently buying three million barrels a month to refill the nation’s SPR in the wake of Joe Biden’s release of over 225 million barrels of oil between March 2022 and August 2023, dumping levels in the reserve to the lowest in 40 years. Tim Stewart, president of the US Oil and Gas Association, alleges that Team Biden is doing nothing short of damage control ahead of the 2024 election given that the nation’s depleted SPR has recently become the public’s concern. “Prior to 2022, the average person knew nothing about the SPR. That has completely changed. When the lovely 75-year-old blue-haired lady at church complains to me how Biden has drained the SPR – they must have caught the public’s attention,” Stewart told Just the News, an independent US media outlet founded by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon.

Apparently, the Biden administration would have bought “refill barrels” at a greater pace, but it is facing limits on how much crude can be funneled into the reserve per month. That means it will take a whopping 75 months to bring the SPR back to the level at which it was before US President Joe Biden started draining it. To sweeten the pill, the US administration triumphantly claims that it is buying oil for the SPR at an average price of $77.31 per barrel, which is considerably below the average of $95 per barrel it was in 2022. Per Stewart, it’s by no means “a good deal for American taxpayers”: one should bear in mind that the average price paid per barrel in the SPR has been $29.70 per barrel, the expert pointed out. It appears that the Biden administration is guided by its own political interests rather than those of the nation.

It began draining the SPR in spring of 2022, ahead of the midterm election: at the time gasoline prices went up and American voters were not happy with that. Still, Just the News failed to mention that the hike in prices was partially caused by Team Biden’s energy sanctions slapped on Russia over Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine. If one digs deeper, one would learn that the special military operation started after the Biden administration snubbed Moscow’s draft security agreement aimed at safeguarding Europe’s peace, protecting Russia’s borders and restoring the balance of forces vis-à-vis NATO. Now, the Biden administration is buying oil at twice the historic average to replenish the SPR before the 2024 presidential election in a bid to look good in the eyes of the US voters.

The crux of the matter is that the US administration and the Democratic Party in general may have avoided this tricky situation ahead of the election if it had green-lighted Donald Trump’s initiative to fill the SPR at the time when oil prices were extremely low, per Stewart. Back in 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, then US President Donald Trump moved to buy oil for the SPR when West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices were under $25 per barrel. Trump requested $3 billion from the US Congress to jump at this lucrative opportunity, but Democratic lawmakers nipped the president’s endeavor in the bud. Per Just the News, Democratic lawmakers bragged at the time that they had “eliminated a $3 billion bailout for big oil.” “They could have picked up several hundred million barrels at $15, but because it was what President Trump wanted, Congress said no,” Stewart told the media outlet.

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At the same time that they’re suing Texas for trying to… “Stop The Record Surge Of Migrants..”

• Biden Is Asking For Mexican Help To Stop The Record Surge Of Migrants (NBC)

The Biden administration is increasingly leaning on Mexico to curb the record flow of migrants crossing into the U.S., but Mexico has its own lists of ambitious asks for the U.S., say officials from both governments familiar with the discussions. Previous measures taken by the Biden administration to stem the migrant surge have led to only temporary dips in the numbers, and in late December, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to ask for greater assistance. Those conversations were “preliminary,” the officials said, and did not result in hard promises from either side. In a press conference on Friday, López Obrador called on the U.S. to approve a plan that would deploy $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries, suspend the U.S. blockade of Cuba, remove all sanctions against Venezuela and grant at least 10 million Hispanics living in the U.S. the right to remain and work legally.

All of those are extremely tall demands of an administration headed into a re-election campaign that may hinge on how firmly Biden is able to get control of the southern U.S. border, which saw a record 300,000 migrants processed by Customs and Border Protection in December. Responding to those requests, a senior Biden administration official told NBC News that AMLO, as López Obrador is commonly called, “has a very ambitious agenda. For some of these things, we would need Congress to act. We share the vision that we need to lift up the region.” The two countries are expected to continue talks in Washington later this month. Mexico brings significant leverage to the negotiations, the U.S. and Mexican officials said. López Obrador’s administration would prefer that President Joe Biden win re-election in November, given Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions during his time in office.

But Biden is quickly running out of options to fix a problem that is driving down his poll numbers without increased support from Mexico, three U.S. officials told NBC News. On Capitol Hill, negotiations over border security measures between Republicans and Democrats continue into their second month with no clear breakthrough. And new asylum policies introduced by the Biden administration in May failed to deter migrants, as evidenced by the record surge. To bring the numbers down, the Biden administration needs Mexico to let it push more non-Mexican immigrants back across the U.S. southern border, as the U.S. was able to do through early 2023. During the Covid pandemic, the Trump and Biden administrations used a public health order known as Title 42 to push migrants back into Mexico without an asylum screening. During that policy, which ended in May, Mexico took back migrants over 1 million times each year for three years. Under current policies, Mexico has agreed to take back 30,000 migrants per month, but that is only 10% of December’s tally.

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“.. The Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.”

• DC Has Resurrected the Specter of Nuclear Armageddon (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US and Israel have isolated themselves as the two most evil governments on earth. By complying with Washington’s foreign policy, the European puppet governments find themselves despised by their citizens. Eleven months ago Russia’s president Vladimir Putin described the West to the Russian Federal Assembly: “They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this shame. The concepts of honor, trust, and decency are not for them. Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got used to being allowed everything. They grew accustomed to spitting on the whole world.

“It turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same disdain, like a master. They cynically deceived them too, tricked them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN Security Council resolutions on Donbass. The Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.” It took Russian politicians and journalists a long time to recover from their delusion that with the demise of communism the world was a community governed by agreed-upon rules. Many Russian intellectuals and journalists had an idealized picture of the United States which kept the Russian government off balance in understanding Washington’s intentions toward Russia. How else to explain Russia’s lack of preparedness when Washington overthrew the elected government of Ukraine and when Georgia invaded South Ossetia?

As Putin now understands, the consequences of the Russian government’s mistaken expectation of fair and honorable relations with the West have been severe. Unless the West’s degradation results in collapse, war is inevitable. American and European peoples have no impact on their governments who serve the agendas of the financially powerful. Now that the West has demonstrated for all to see that the West suffers no shame from participation in genocide, even the most westernized Russians are likely to keep a safe distance from Washington’s snares. Now that the West has completely shattered the trust built during the Soviet era, the threat of nuclear Armageddon again holds sway over the Earth. In the face of this threat, all other threats recede into nothingness.

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“The attorneys general of Indiana, West Virginia and 25 other states, warn the court that this novel theory will produce “chaos” in the country.”

• 27 States File to Oppose Colorado’s Disqualification of Trump (Turley)

The majority of Americans oppose the decisions in Colorado and Maine to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot. Other polls put the balance slightly in favor, but all polls show a deeply divided country on this effort. The Maine decision will now be reviewed by the Maine state courts, but the Colorado decision is scheduled for oral argument in a matter of weeks. A reversal of the Colorado decision is now supported by 27 states, which filed with the Supreme Court to oppose the underlying theory under the Fourteenth Amendment. It is relatively rare to see states opposing the expansion of their own authority vis-a-vis Congress. The brief reinforces the view of states like Colorado as outliers in the country in embracing this anti-democratic theory. The attorneys general of Indiana, West Virginia and 25 other states, warn the court that this novel theory will produce “chaos” in the country.

“The Colorado Supreme Court has cast itself into a ‘political thicket,’ Evenwel v. Abbott, 578 U.S. 54, 58, (2016), and it is now up to this Court to pull it out. ‘Confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.’ Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4 (2006) (per curiam). If the Colorado decision stands, that critical confidence will be harmed. Many Americans will become convinced that a few partisan actors have contrived to take a political decision out of ordinary voters’ hands.” Advocates are pushing this dangerous theory at a time of deepening divisions in our country. As I have previously said, the four Colorado justices are recklessly throwing matches at a powder keg. That is why I am hopeful that at least one of the liberal justices will follow the lead of the three democratically appointed Colorado justices, who dissent from this anti-democratic decision.

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Federal appeals court.

• Donald Trump Will Attend Tuesday Arguments For Immunity Motion In J6 Case (PM)

Former President Donald Turmp will be attending Tuesday’s arguments regarding his presidential immunity motion in the Jan. 6 case being led by Jack Smith. In a post to Truth Social, Trump made the announcement that he would be attending the arguments come Tuesday.

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Crazy story of the day.

• Trump Co-Defendant: Improper Relationship Between Georgia DA, Prosecutor (NYP)

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had an “improper” and “clandestine” relationship with the married special prosecutor who assisted in securing the Georgia grand jury indictment against former President Donald Trump, a co-defendant in the election interference case alleged Monday. The bombshell court filing made by former Trump 2020 campaign official Michael Roman argues that Willis should be disqualified from the case and the charges against him dropped because “the district attorney chose to appoint her romantic partner, who at all times relevant to this prosecution has been a married man” to the case.

Roman contends that Nathan Wade, a private attorney with the Atlanta-based Wade & Campbell Firm, used some of the nearly $654,000 in legal fees that he’s been compensated for by the Fulton County DA’s office for his work on the Trump case to take Willis on lavish vacations to “Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean.” “Mr. Roman … moves the Court for an order disqualifying the district attorney, her office, and the special prosecutor from further prosecuting the instant matter on the grounds that the district attorney and the special prosecutor have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers,” the 127-page filing states.

“Accordingly, the district attorney and the special prosecutor have violated laws regulating the use of public monies, suffer from irreparable conflicts of interest, and have violated their oaths of office under the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct and should be disqualified from prosecuting this matter,” it continues. Roman’s filing claims that “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney” have confirmed that Willis and Wade had an ongoing fling, and that Wade filed for divorce in Cobb County, Ga., “a day after his first contract with Willis commenced” in November 2021. “In addition, the district attorney and the special prosecutor have been seen in private together (in a personal relationship capacity) in and about the Atlanta area and believed to have co-habited in some form or fashion at a location that neither of them owned,” the filing alleges.


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“@WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird,” he concluded, adding a “poop” emoji.”

• Musk Responds To WSJ ‘Hit Piece’ (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hit back at the Wall Street Journal in a post on his X platform (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, a day after the paper published a lengthy article detailing company executives’ purported concerns over his use of illegal drugs. Referring to an infamous 2018 interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, during which Musk smoked marijuana on camera, the Tesla tycoon explained: “after that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol.” “@WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird,” he concluded, adding a “poop” emoji.

In its article, headlined: “Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX,” the Journal claimed multiple company executives and board members at both companies were concerned that what they viewed as Musk’s erratic behavior was caused by the use of illegal drugs. These supposedly included not only the cannabis he was seen smoking with Rogan, but also ketamine – for which he has claimed to have a legal prescription – LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and magic mushrooms. Musk’s brother Kimbal and at least one current SpaceX board member reportedly took drugs with Musk, though it was not stated whether they were among those supposedly concerned about the billionaire’s habits. Musk has allegedly used drugs at “private parties around the world,” where attendees were made to sign non-disclosure agreements or turn in their phones.

While “people close to Musk” were said to be “concerned [his drug use] could cause a health crisis,” the Journal focused more on the potential implications for his businesses, specifically the fate of $14 billion in government contracts enjoyed by SpaceX. “Drug abuse” – the use of controlled or illegal substances “in a manner that deviates from approved medical direction” – could jeopardize Musk’s security clearance and would violate federal contractor requirements. Following the Rogan incident, SpaceX randomly deployed drug-sniffing dogs on company property and executives “began warning employees to follow company rules at all times, including to not use illegal drugs even outside of the office,” insider sources told the WSJ.

Despite focusing on drugs, the report acknowledged that even those concerned about Musk’s behavior were not sure whether to attribute it to substance use or other issues like his “consistent lack of sleep,” being on the autism spectrum, or (self-diagnosed) bipolar disorder. Few investors complained about his behavior when his companies were performing as well as they were in recent years, it admitted. Musk fans on X have condemned the “hit piece,” which think-tank director Jeffrey Tucker decried as “the kind of vicious thing you would expect to see in East Germany or the old Soviet Union.”

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“..by pulling a Bannon, Hunter now faces the expectation in many circles that he will get the full Bannon treatment from Garland.”

• Hunter Biden Contempt Resolutions Introduced In House (ZH)

House Republicans on Monday introduced contempt resolutions against Hunter Biden, recommending that he be held in Contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas and appear for testimony in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Dec. 13. Hunter, who was handsomely compensated for doing nothing on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma (right before his father strong armed the Ukrainians into firing their chief prosecutor – who was investigating Burisma), skipped out on his closed-door deposition, and instead said he would only appear for public testimony – where questions would be far more limited. According to the committees, “Biden has violated federal law, and must be held in contempt of Congres.”

The committees said they want to get information from Hunter Biden to determine whether his father, President Joe Biden, was involved in any bribery schemes, abused his positions of political power as president or vice president, or knowingly participated in any scheme to enrich himself or his family, including through contact with foreign entities. -Just the News. As Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley noted in December; “Few people expected Hunter to testify in the deposition. The evidence against him is overwhelming, as shown in his second federal indictment on tax charges. He and his uncles were allegedly engaged in one of the largest influence-peddling operations in history involving millions of dollars from various foreign sources. Hunter simply could have done what prior witnesses have done: Go in and take the Fifth. That is what attorney and former IRS official Lois Lerner did — twice — when House Republicans wanted to ask her about the Obama administration targeting conservative groups.”

It was a no-brainer that someone appears to have radically over-thought on the Hunter Biden legal team. Hunter can now be held in contempt of Congress. That will force the hand of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who aggressively pursued Trump figures for contempt, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Despite some of us writing to the contrary, Bannon claimed his lawyers told him he did not have to appear before a House committee. He was swiftly charged and convicted by Garland’s prosecutors. In this instance, the contempt case would go to the U.S. Attorney in D.C., Matthew Graves, who previously declined to assist in bringing tax charges against the president’s son. Yet by pulling a Bannon, Hunter now faces the expectation in many circles that he will get the full Bannon treatment from Garland.

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Sounds like Biden: “Bild described Scholz as “the most unpopular chancellor of all time.”

• Most Germans Want Scholz To Step Down – Poll (RT)

Public support for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fallen to record lows, the tabloid Bild reported on Monday, citing a fresh survey conducted by the INSA polling institute. Almost two-thirds of Germans want him to resign before the next federal election, scheduled for October 2025, the data suggests. As many as 64% of respondents told INSA that Scholz should vacate his position and hand it over to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is a fellow Social Democrat. Less than a quarter of Germans opposed that prospect. Scholz would also lose an election versus any of his major rivals, the poll showed. Only 23% of Germans would support the current chancellor against Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merz himself would enjoy the backing of 26% of voters.

Should Scholz face off against Markus Soeder, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) – the traditional CDU ally in Bavaria – Soeder would secure a clear victory with 36% to 20%. Pistorius would claim a narrow victory against Merz with 25% to 23%, but would still lose to Soeder 25% to 34%, the survey said. Under German law, the chancellor is confirmed by MPs on the proposal of the federal president. Soeder currently serves as governor of Germany’s most populous state and is known for his criticism of Scholz’s policies. In November, he warned that Germany was in a “serious crisis,” particularly slamming the chancellor’s cabinet over its budget and police failures, adding that the “government has gone bankrupt.” The Bavarian politician also criticized the federal government’s strategy of using only subsidies to combat price hikes resulting from forgoing Russian energy supplies. He also criticized Berlin for, as he said, prioritizing military aid to Ukraine over the nation’s own security.

The INSA poll showed that Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) had the support of just 16% of Germans, 15 percentage points behind the CDU and seven percentage points behind the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Scholz has been losing public support for quite some time. In early December, a YouGov poll showed that 74% of Germans believed he was doing a poor job as chancellor, with only 20% seeing his performance in a positive light. As many as 73% said they were unhappy with his entire cabinet. Some 77% said they placed little or no trust in the way Scholz is governing Germany. Even among SPD supporters, this figure reached 60%. Later in the month, Der Spiegel reported that Scholz’s personal approval had slipped to just 30%, down from 44% in June 2023. On Monday, Bild described Scholz as “the most unpopular chancellor of all time.”

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“This is total failure.”

• House Freedom Caucus Slams Speaker Johnson’s Proposed Spending Deal (JTN)

The conservative House Freedom Caucus slammed House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed top-line spending deal with Senate Democrats as a “total failure,” arguing the potential agreement costs about $68 billion more than the Louisiana Republican said it would.Johnson told members of Congress on Sunday that he reached a $1.590 trillion spending deal with the Senate and White House, but the Freedom Caucus slammed the proposal later that evening in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It’s even worse than we thought,” the caucus wrote. “Don’t believe the spin. Once you break through typical Washington math, the true total programmatic spending level is $1.658 trillion — not $1.59 trillion. This is total failure.”

At the end of last month, the Freedom Caucus released a statement titled, “House GOP’s New Year Resolution Must Be Cutting Spending,” which stated that the U.S. is “on the path to fiscal ruin” but that Congress has “done little to force a course correction from this calamity.” With a slim Republican majority, the 45-member Freedom Caucus holds a significant amount of sway in the 435-member House, and most recently played an integral role in deciding the House speaker. Now, the House needs to pass a deal before government funding completely expires on Feb. 2.

Johnson

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“The medical field is determined to kill whatever shred of credibility it still has left. And it is succeeding.”

• “It’s Okay to Be Fat” and Obesity Should be “Normalized” (MN)

A doctor at Cedars-Sinai posted a TikTok video saying “it is okay to be fat,” and that being fat “needs to be normalized,” despite obesity-related diseases being the biggest killer in America. Yes, really. “Here’s my hot take as a doctor, I totally agree, it is okay to be fat, we don’t say that enough, but it needs to be normalized,” remarked Dr. Nicole Vangroningen. Vangroningen went on to claim that being fat is “typically not a problem that requires immediate solving.” Presumably, it only needs “solving” once an obese person has developed numerous fat-related diseases that greatly increase their risk of dying. Perhaps even more ludicrously, the doctor said “it is okay to not be healthy,” suggesting that people who suggest otherwise are engaging in “healthism,” adding “a good doctor will not judge you for being fat, they will not judge you for being unhealthy.”

Vangroningen completely removes any responsibility from the equation, telling potential patients, “We are also here to help you if you decide to not make any changes at all”. God forbid anyone end up under her “care”. According to the CDC, “In the United States and worldwide, obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death, including deaths from diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.” “We now have doctors speaking out against “healthism,” commented Matt Walsh. “The medical field is determined to kill whatever shred of credibility it still has left. And it is succeeding.” As we document in the video below, the ‘body positivity’ movement has been triumphed by the culture and the establishment despite literally killing some of its leading advocates.

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Picnic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744318846268285388

 

 

Gorilla mom

 

 

Orchestra

 

 

Microlight
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744307961122443769

 

 


Reminder that experiencing awe quite literally improves your health.
Awe, which has only been studied properly in the last two decades, has been shown to:
• Reduce stress
• Trigger the release of oxytocin
• Lower levels of inflammatory cytokines

Being made to feel small (experiencing “self-diminishment”) even quells our negative self-talk, by deactivating the part of the cortex involved with how we perceive ourselves. Through awe we become less attuned to ourselves and more attuned to the wider world. Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley said: “We are at this cultural moment of narcissism and self-shame and criticism and entitlement; awe gets us out of that.” Neuroscientists define awe it as the emotional response to something vast that defies (and changes) our existing frame of reference of something.

What’s one way to experience it? Travel to your nearest cathedral and gaze upwards. Gothic architecture was built for this very purpose – through maximum height and maximum light. Achieving this at vast scale was a critical breakthrough by medieval engineers, who pioneered the flying buttresses, the pointed arch, and various other innovations which made taller and thinner walls possible. Those builders also believed that light itself was divine, and that when it poured in through the great windows it elevated one’s consciousness to the heavens. As English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said: “The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 5 2023

Mar 052023
 
 March 5, 2023  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  82 Responses »


Robert Capa Capucine, French model and actress, in her hotel room, Rome 1951

 

• American Leaders Are ‘Fundamentally Stupid’ – US Democrat (RT)
• Trump Vows To End Ukraine Conflict In 24 Hours (RT)
• Bakhmut, Strategic Or Not, Is Falling (MoA)
• U.S. Intel On China Considering Lethal Aid For Putin’s War (NBC)
• China Is Finally Stepping Up To Its Role As A Superpower (Lukyanov)
• West Likely Covering Up Nord Stream Probe Findings – French General (RT)
• We’ll Soon Find Out (Kunstler)
• EU Should ‘Get Ready’ For Stagflation – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)
• Obesity Is a US Security Threat (ZH)
• Almost 80% of Americans Aged 17 to 24 Unfit for Military Service (ET)
• EU Delays Final Vote On Combustion Engine Ban (EN)
• Twitter Discloses Another Possible Government Censorship Effort (Turley)

 

 

 

 

Russell MSNBC

 

 

 

 

Trump Deep state

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Our leaders are intellectually bankrupt. They don’t know what they can accomplish and what they can not accomplish. Fundamentally they’re stupid, and they don’t have any other ideas.”

• American Leaders Are ‘Fundamentally Stupid’ – US Democrat (RT)

Motivated by a desire to sever Germany’s economic ties to Russia, the US’ “intellectually bankrupt” politicians have made nuclear war a realistic possibility, Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Geoffrey Young told RT on Saturday. Young said that the electorate he has spoken to in Kentucky are “sick of” seeing their tax dollars go to Ukraine, and think that the US should cut off the supply of arms to Kiev. In Washington, however, politicians are “separated from reality,” he said. “I think most of them are severely deluded about reality by decades of anti-Russian propaganda in our mainstream media,” he claimed, pointing to the fact that Congress is currently holding hearings on climate change, which he called “totally irrelevant..at this moment when humanity is threatened by a possible nuclear war.”

Aside from using Ukraine to fight a proxy war against Russia, Young claimed that the Bden administration’s overarching goal has been to “strengthen Washington’s hold over our European so-called allies.” “The Nord Stream bombing was a part of that strategy, designed to make Germany, the largest economy in Europe, totally dependent on the US,” he explained. “For decades, Washington’s biggest nightmare has been that Germany and Russia would ally, have their economies complement each other… and make the United States irrelevant.” American journalist Seymour Hersh recently published reports blaming the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines on the CIA and the Norwegian navy, who he claimed acted on the instruction of President Joe Biden.

Hersh said that the attack was largely intended to remove Berlin’s ability to lift sanctions on Russia and resume buying Russian gas – which is significantly cheaper than American liquefied natural gas. These sanctions have been ineffective. According to the most recent figures from the IMF, Russia’s economy is set to grow faster than that of the UK and Germany this year, and faster than all of the G7 nations in 2024. Yet the West continues to prepare more sanctions on Moscow out of “incompetence,” Young told RT. “Our leaders are intellectually bankrupt. They don’t know what they can accomplish and what they can not accomplish. Fundamentally they’re stupid, and they don’t have any other ideas.”

The US and its allies should therefore “back off” before the conflict in Ukraine spreads any further, he recommended. Young’s position on Ukraine puts him at odds with the rest of the Democratic Party, who have voted in lockstep to continue the US’ military support for Ukraine. Only a minority of Republicans in Congress have opposed this support, with 11 GOP representatives sponsoring legislation last month that would cut off the flow of weapons to Kiev. Young is challenging incumbent Governor Steve Beshear in the Kentucky Democratic primary this May. He ran for the House of Representatives as a self-described “Peace Democrat” last November, but lost to Republican Andy Barr.

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“We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars, that are stupid..”

• Trump Vows To End Ukraine Conflict In 24 Hours (RT)

President Joe Biden is leading the United States “into oblivion,” Donald Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland on Saturday, promising to stop wasting US taxpayer money on “stupid” foreign wars as he rallies support for a potential political comeback in 2024. “I was the only president in decades that didn’t have a war,” Trump said in his nearly two-hour long speech at the annual conservative gathering at Gaylord National Resort, claiming that if he was in office right now, “Ukraine would have been thriving, there would have been no dead people, no obliterated cities that can never be rebuilt.” Last month, Trump promised to immediately call Moscow and Kiev, if re-elected, insisting he knows exactly what to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to stop the conflict.

“I know what to say,” he reiterated on Saturday. “Before I arrive in the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine ended… I will get the problem solved and I will get it solved in rapid order and it will take me no longer than one day.” At the same time, Trump blasted Biden for wasting billions of US taxpayer dollars instead of forcing Washington’s European allies to bankroll Kiev. “Is NATO putting up dollar for dollar with us?” he said. “We put up $140 billion and they put up just a tiny fraction of that. And you know, we all want to see success, but it’s far more important to them than it is to us because of that location.” “We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars, that are stupid,” Trump proclaimed.

Trump warned Americans that they are facing the “most dangerous time in our country’s history, and Joe Biden is leading us into oblivion,” claiming that the world will soon plunge into WWIII unless “something doesn’t happen fast.” “I am the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent world war three,” he said. In recent months, Trump has repeatedly called for the US to lead the way in negotiating a peace settlement in Ukraine, while blasting the way President Biden has handled the conflict. He also condemned the US’ promise to send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, saying the move could bring about a nuclear war – as Moscow continues to insist that arms shipments make the West a direct party to the hostilities.

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“The Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut, several thousands still seem to be there, will then be left with only two options: surrender or die.”

• Bakhmut, Strategic Or Not, Is Falling (MoA)

Over the last six weeks the Russian counter-battery campaign destroyed some additional 500 Ukrainian howitzers and multiple rocket launchers. The Russian Lancet suicide drones (videos) have done a lot of that work. Russia has thereby increased its own artillery advantage even more. As artillery is the major killer in any modern war this also means that casualties on both sides will follow a similar ratio as the number of guns and rounds fired by each side. For the last several weeks the daily ‘clobber report’ by the Russian Defense Ministry reported some 350-400 Ukrainian soldiers killed per day along the whole frontline. On Thursday that number increased to 640, stayed at 640 in Friday’s report and increased to 880 in today’s report. 490 of those were reported in the Bakhmut area.

BBC cooperates with other organization to count every announcement of a dead soldier in the Russian local media. Since the start of the war it has identified a total of 16,000: Throughout 2022, Russian sources typically reported about 250–300 deaths each week, doubling in January and continuing to grow again in February. Russian source report death per week at a lower rate than Ukrainian death per day. The ratio is again about 10 Ukrainians for 1 Russian. That number of Russian dead has doubled in January and further increased in February says the BBC. But the 10 to 1 ratio between Ukrainian and Russian dead will still have been the same.

I have said for a while that Bakhmut was in operational encirclement. Russian artillery could reach its last roads in and out. Since three days ago Bakhmut is in tactical encirclement. Russian direct fire, i.e. tank guns and hand held anti-tank missiles, can now cover all of Bakhmut’s supply routes. They will shoot at any car that attempts to drive there. Its one reason why the reported deaths have harshly increased. Should the Ukraine decide to order its soldiers to stay in Bakhmut the city will be physically encircled. All roads will be blocked not only by fire but by heavily armed Russian checkpoints. The Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut, several thousands still seem to be there, will then be left with only two options: surrender or die.

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Anonymous sources galore. But zero evidence. Just poking the dragon.

• U.S. Intel On China Considering Lethal Aid For Putin’s War (NBC)

Initial U.S. intelligence suggesting that China is considering supplying lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine was gleaned from Russian government officials, according to one current and one former U.S. official familiar with the intelligence. U.S. officials then spent weeks corroborating the information from other sources of intelligence, the current and former officials said, and with allies who also brought additional streams of information. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. The multiple threads of intelligence suggesting that China is considering giving lethal aid to Russia, including ammunition and artillery, raised alarm among Biden administration officials, particularly given how such a move by Beijing could shift the dynamic of the war in Moscow’s favor.

“A Russian military that’s fueled by or aided by a Chinese infusion of weapons and platforms is more lethal militarily and more capable,” a senior administration official said. “That’s not going to be good for the people of Ukraine.” Top administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director Williams Burns, have publicly expressed confidence in the intelligence and warned China against providing Russia with lethal military aid. China has denied it is considering sending lethal aid to Russia, calling the U.S. accusation “disinformation.” U.S. officials note that they have not seen any evidence of movement or a decision from China to take that step. At a White House press briefing Thursday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked how serious the administration thinks China is about possibly sending weapons to Russia.

“We actually don’t know,” Kirby said. Kirby added that the U.S. believes China has not taken it off the table but also has not seen any evidence that Beijing is moving toward sending lethal aid to Moscow. The initial intelligence was vague about what specific systems or equipment China was considering providing to Russia, including whether they could provide drones beyond what are already available commercially, officials familiar with the intelligence said. “There are varying levels of confidence about how serious China is about this,” a second senior U.S. official said. In an interview Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Burns acknowledged that the decision to release the information publicly was intended to deter China from deciding to provide Russia with lethal aid. “We’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment,” Burns said. He added: “Secretary Blinken and the President have thought it important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be.”

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“This will change the world..”

• China Is Finally Stepping Up To Its Role As A Superpower (Lukyanov)

China has stepped up its diplomatic activity considerably. This is not only because it has broken out of the long-standing pandemic isolation that previously hampered its outreach. The main motive is that China’s role and weight in the international arena have grown to the point where contemplative detachment is no longer possible. This is an important shift in Chinese self-awareness; the question now is what changes in international practice it will lead to. Non-action as the highest virtue and the non-contradictory interpenetration of opposites are principles of traditional philosophy, but they are also quite an applied way of conducting international activities. A detailed analysis of this phenomenon should be left to specialists, but it is worth noting that the shift from such a worldview to a more familiar ideological and geopolitical confrontation took place when China adopted the generally alien Western communist doctrine.

Mao Zedong attempted to change not only the social order but also the culture of the Chinese. But his reign ended with a bargain with the United States, which was a return to a strategic equilibrium that better suited the Chinese view of the world. Mutual recognition did not mean agreement and harmony, but it was in line with the objectives of the parties at the time. This period, which lasted until very recently, is only now showing signs of coming to an end. There is much debate in America about the last few decades, and there is complaining that it is China that has gained the most from the interaction. Criteria may vary, but in general it is hard to disagree that Beijing has been the primary beneficiary – at least in terms of the transformation of the country and its place on the international stage. Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of quiet, gradual ascent was entirely in the Chinese spirit, and the result has undoubtedly been justified.

So much so that it was extremely difficult for Beijing to understand that this super favorable and advantageous situation would come to an end. This proved inevitable for one simple reason: China has acquired a power that, whatever its wishes and intentions, makes it a potential rival to the US. And this has led to a natural evolution of the American approach to Beijing. After all, the US style is the direct opposite of the classic Chinese style described above. And the latter’s attempts in the late 2010s and early 2020s to slow down the growing American pressure have run up against Washington’s firm intention to move the relationship into the category of strategic competition. To be fair, China’s assertiveness and self-confidence were also growing, but if everything had depended on Beijing alone, the period of beneficial cooperation would have lasted several more years.

Be that as it may, a new era has dawned. China’s diplomatic revival is intended to demonstrate that Beijing is not afraid to play a role in world politics. The form of engagement so far bears the hallmarks of the previous period and of that very traditional approach – the sterile precision of the wording of Chinese peace proposals on the Ukraine issue is evidence of this. But this too is likely to change. China’s desire to maintain an outwardly well intentioned neutrality suits Moscow; it is the West that is quick to allege insincerity, and to do so in a tone that is unbecoming of the Chinese. Beijing should not be expected to make a sharp U-turn, which is also contrary to its sense of propriety, but the direction is set. And it is not a question of whether China shares Russia’s assessment of what is happening in Ukraine.

Beijing has carefully avoided expressing an opinion because it does not consider it to be its business. But the realignment of forces on the world stage is taking its course, with China and Russia, whether they like it or not, on one side and the United States and its allies on the other. And from now on this will become increasingly clear. In his ten years at the helm of his country, Xi Jinping has transformed its domestic and foreign policies. On the one hand, he has emphasized the classical Chinese outlook more than his predecessors, while on the other, he has honored the slogans and ideas associated with socialism. The former implies a self-sufficient harmony, while the latter tends to be outward-looking as much as inward-looking. This symbiosis is likely to define China’s positioning in the next five or ten years of Xi’s rule. The hostile international environment will increasingly test Beijing’s ability to maintain an acceptable equilibrium. Much will depend on how successful these attempts are, including for Russia.

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“And if we don’t have any conclusions, it’s [because] there are probably conclusions that they don’t want to give..”

• West Likely Covering Up Nord Stream Probe Findings – French General (RT)

The fact that none of the Western nations investigating the Nord Stream pipeline explosions have released their findings implies they have reached a conclusion they would rather keep under the rug, a French general has claimed. Dominique Trinquand, the former head of the French military mission to the UN and NATO, also described as “trustworthy” a recent exposé by Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which alleged that Washington was behind the act of sabotage. Speaking on France’s LCI TV channel on Friday about the attack, which took place in September 2022, Trinquand argued that “we would have found proof if it were the Russians.” He went on to suggest that if there is still no evidence incriminating Moscow, “you have to look elsewhere.”

A key question that needs to be asked, according to the French general, is “who benefits from the crime?” Seeing that the destroyed pipelines were owned by Moscow, “the crime a priori will not benefit the Russians,” Trinquand insisted. He also pointed out the fact that even though such countries as Sweden, Denmark, and Germany have conducted their own probes into the explosions, recovering a lot of material from the site, no conclusions have been made public as of yet. “And if we don’t have any conclusions, it’s [because] there are probably conclusions that they don’t want to give,” the general surmised.

Commenting on Hersh’s bombshell report, which pointed the finger squarely at the US, Trinquand asserted that the story is not only plausible, but also verifiable by pretty much anyone thanks to online aircraft- and vessel-tracking services available nowadays. In his article, Hersh claimed US Navy divers had planted bombs at the undersea pipelines for pumping gas from Russia to Germany back in June 2022 under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea. According to the exposé, the explosives were detonated three months later with a remote signal sent by a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane. Washington has consistently denied any involvement in the sabotage, while top Russian officials have called for a UN investigation into what President Vladimir Putin has described as an “act of international terrorism.”

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“..just adds another layer of perfidy to the giant matrix of lies laid down by US agency officials in this disgraceful episode of US history..”

• We’ll Soon Find Out (Kunstler)

In an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier last Tuesday, FBI Director Chris Wray said, “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.” Like so much else in America’s tortured, distractible life these days, the meaning larded into that utterance went clear over the collective heads of just about everybody. What was the key part of that statement? “For quite some time now….” Gee, really? Like, how long? One year? More than that? Maybe since March 2020? And you didn’t say anything, Mr. FBI Director? You didn’t do a thing to dispel the Covid-19 miasma of confusion that swaddled Washington DC like a smallpox blanket of yore?

The question of where the novel coronavirus came from has been a ferocious national controversy since late 2019, you understand. Several government agencies, including the CIA and all the offices under the gigantic National Institutes of Health (NIH) – including the NIAID run for decades by Dr. Anthony Fauci — plus the FDA and CDC, tucked into the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)… all of these outfits have pretended to not know the true origin of Covid-19 for over three years. And the FBI Director, who could have shed some authoritative light on the matter by stepping up to a podium and weighing in, just let all that chaos roll? And by-the-by, let’s not forget that the whole time Chris Wray knew with moderate certainty that Covid-19 came from the Wuhan virology lab, he was in charge of a battalion of FBI agents assigned to managing Twitter, Facebook, and Google — that is, the apps that comprise the digital Public Square — to make sure that anyone who opined about Covid coming from the Wuhan lab got censored, banished, cancelled, reputationally destroyed.

So, why did Mr. Wray make this statement on Tuesday… “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed…” Probably we’re hearing the old Modified Limited Hangout strategy, a venerable ruse, which is when a criminally culpable government throws the public a bone of admission about something that is common knowledge anyway — the thing everybody knows — while pretending that they were in on the common knowledge all along — which just adds another layer of perfidy to the giant matrix of lies laid down by US agency officials in this disgraceful episode of US history. What Mr. Wray left out of his statement this week is any hint that a gang of US scientists and doctors under Dr. Fauci were directly and intimately involved in the activities at Wuhan that produced the virus that killed millions around the world, and led to the warp speed production of a “vaccine” mere weeks after the organism appeared — which will probably end up killing and maiming more people than the disease itself.

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Hmm.. What’s happening in Europe is not just some financial phenomenon. It’s eating its own sanctions.

• EU Should ‘Get Ready’ For Stagflation – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)

The Eurozone is on the verge of stagflation, renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs has warned on his Youtube channel. Stagflation refers to a period of stagnant economic growth tied up with persistently high inflation and a sharp rise in unemployment. According to Sachs, who was the mastermind behind “shock therapy” reforms in the 1990s in Russia, the recent slowing in headline inflation in the euro area is a temporary occurrence, as it includes highly volatile fresh food and energy prices, which change quickly. However, the core inflation, which excludes these readings and therefore gives a clearer picture of underlying pressures within the economy, surged to a new record last month, signaling that the Eurozone economy may be headed into a crisis in the long run.

“Core inflation in Europe just keeps rising, despite headline slowing as the economy tips into recession. Get ready for stagflation!” Sachs said. Headline inflation across the 20 countries of the euro area slowed to 8.5% in February from 8.6% the month before, according to Eurostat data. Experts attribute the trend to the decline in energy prices brought about by unseasonably mild weather and, subsequently, lower demand. Core inflation, on the other hand, rose by 5.6%, a new historic high for the indicator. The surge in core inflation is likely to force the European Central Bank to keep raising interest rates, which often stalls economic growth or even pushes the economy into a recession, a period of negative growth.

“If we don’t get clear signals that core inflation is going down, we’ll have to do more,” Belgium’s central bank head Pierre Wunsch, who is also a member of the ECB governing council, told reporters this week, adding that “looking at rates of 4% would not be excluded.” Sachs is not the first to issue warnings about a looming stagflation. Another renowned economist, Nouriel Roubini, has been saying for months now that the world economy is headed into what he calls “a global stagflationary debt crisis,” noting that with interest rates at their current level, the debt ratio is quickly becoming unsustainable.

Read more …

Two articles on the same topic. Zero Hedge focuses on military, ET more on food.

It is absolute insanity that the US subsidizes the demise of its own citizens, through foodstamps etc.

77% of Americans aged 17-24 are unfit for military service.

• Obesity Is a US Security Threat (ZH)

As the US military struggles to fill the ranks with new recruits, a new report from the Department of Defense reveals that the vast majority of Americans aged 17-24 are unfit for military service. Citing a Feb. 16 congressional hearing, a DoD report reveals that 77% of Americans in the above age group could not physically qualify to enter the armed forces – a 6% increase from 2017. A key factor is obesity – which hit nearly 42% in 2020. Meanwhile, a 2022 study cited by the Epoch Times found a link between receiving government food assistance and a greater chance of becoming obese through the consumption of unhealthy foods. A 2015 USDA analysis found that 40% of total SNAP participants were obese. Last month, Military.com reported on an Army initiative to whip fat, low-scoring recruits into shape in ‘pre-basic training courses.’

“The program, known as the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, is designed to expand the pool of eligible Americans who can join the service by creating short camps that help applicants reach Army standards. The service came up short of its recruiting goal last year, bringing in 45,000 new active-duty troops — well below its goal of 60,000. This year, the service is even more ambitious, seeking 65,000 new recruits.” -Military.com “The Future Soldier Prep Course is giving young Americans who want to serve the chance to do so, by helping them not only meet our standards, but in many cases rise above them,” said Gen. James McConville, the Army’s top officer. “We started seeing positive results early on in the program, and I am happy to see it expand to additional installations so we can continue to attract and invest in our nation’s best talent.”

In September 2022, a U.S. Army general bluntly said that young Americans are either too obese, too sick, or too criminal to serve in the military. “Some of the challenges we have are obesity, we have pre-existing medical conditions, we have behavioral health problems, we have criminality, people with felonies, and we have drug use,” Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington. Brunson called it a “condition,” saying that “this is not an Army problem, so nationally what we have to look at is what’s going on with our youth.” The general’s statement came as a response to difficulties the U.S. military had reaching their target goals for recruits in 2022. This struggle, prevalent in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, has prompted security analysts and some U.S. institutions to declare obesity a threat to national security.

“Each year, more than $60 million goes toward replacing the 1,200-plus first-term enlistees discharged for excess weight,” Irina Tsukerman, a security analyst and the owner of Scarab Rising, told The Epoch Times. She said high obesity rates have narrowed the recruiting pool considerably, coupled with “falling intelligence and education standards.” She also noted that, along with reduced resiliency and flexibility, the military is less prepared to meet “asymmetrical or conventional challenges.” Police departments struggle with similar challenges, according to Tsukerman.

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“The top seven subsidized foods covered under SNAP have been associated with “cardiometabolic risk factors” such as obesity..”

• Almost 80% of Americans Aged 17 to 24 Unfit for Military Service (ET)

It’s no secret that the U.S. military is struggling to find people who are fit for service these days. Maintaining health and wellness among its existing members has also become a challenge. A Department of Defense report cited during a Feb. 16 congressional hearing offered a hard pill to swallow: 77 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are unqualified physically to enter the armed forces. That’s a 6 percent increase from 2017, which has added to the struggle to find new recruits in every branch of the military. One of the major hurdles recruiters now face is obesity, which has become a dominant health challenge for Americans. As of 2020, the prevalence of obesity in the adult population hit nearly 42 percent. In addition, research shows that government food subsidies are a significant contributing factor.

One 2022 study found a link between receiving food assistance and a greater chance of becoming obese through the consumption of unhealthy foods. That’s especially true for participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). As the largest federal nutrition assistance program in the United States, SNAP counts thousands of U.S. military members among its beneficiaries. Presently, there are 22,000 active duty individuals and nearly 250,000 National Guard service members who receive SNAP, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But this isn’t a new problem. Findings from a 2015 USDA analysis revealed that 40 percent of total SNAP participants were obese. The top seven subsidized foods covered under SNAP have been associated with “cardiometabolic risk factors” such as obesity since 2009. Subsidized crops are turned into highly processed foods with little to no nutritional benefit, many of which are available to SNAP recipients.

Ultra-processed foods directly contribute to obesity, according to a 2022 health report. The analysis states that the consumption of ultra-processed foods is likely much higher among those participating in SNAP. And that’s because, unlike some U.S. nutrition subsidy programs, SNAP covers items such as cookies, soda, candy, and ice cream. So participants aren’t only eating higher quantities of heavily processed items, but also have access to a lot of junk food. Although food assistance is critical for more than 41 million Americans, nutritionists argue that a helping hand shouldn’t be at the expense of someone’s health. And it really comes down to cost. It’s simply cheaper to eat junk than it is to eat healthier food.

“We need a system that reduces the cost of healthy, unprocessed foods and makes it easier for people to afford and access them,” Dana Ellis Hunnes, senior clinical dietitian at UCLA Medical Center, told The Epoch Times. Hunnes has a passion for nutrition, which she shares in her book “Recipe for Survival.” She noted that ultra-processed food is the cornerstone of federal food assistance, which can fuel high obesity rates. “Ideally, we should be offering significantly more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and farmers’ market vouchers than … processed cereals, dairy products, and other packaged ultra-processed foods,” she said.

Read more …

A suicidal society in a last gasp save.

• EU Delays Final Vote On Combustion Engine Ban (EN)

European Union member states decided on Friday morning to postpone a vote to ratify an EU-wide ban on the sale of new combustion engine vehicles as of 2035, reflecting growing discontent over one of the central measures to achieve climate neutrality by mid-century. The ban was designed as a gradual transition and proposes that all new cars and vans sold across the EU market from 2035 onwards should have a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions, a provision that will effectively exclude all those that run on petrol and diesel. Brussels chose 2035 as the cut-off date because the average lifespan of vehicles is 15 years and the Green Deal aims to make the entire economy CO2-neutral by 2050.

Friday’s vote by EU ambassadors was supposed to be a mere formality after the bloc’s two co-legislators, the EU Council and the European Parliament, had reached in October a provisional agreement that kept the 2035 deadline intact. The Parliament rubberstamped the law last month with a tight margin of 340 MEPs in favour and 279 against. The legislation was then passed on to ambassadors for the final green light. But as Friday’s vote approached, a number of member states intensified their opposition. Germany, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria are among those who in recent weeks expressed concerns regarding the far-reaching measure, Euronews understands. Together, the four countries would have been able to mount a so-called “blocking minority,” using either abstention or rejection votes.


Germany, a world leader in the automotive industry, is campaigning to have cars that run on synthetic fuels, also known as e-fuels, excluded from the 2035 ban. E-fuels are an emerging technology whose carbon footprint and commercial viability have been contested by environmental organisations. German Transport Minister Volker Wissing, who hails from the liberal, business-friendly FDP party, said earlier this week he had asked the European Commission for a new proposal to introduce the e-fuel exemption but he had not received any positive feedback from the bloc’s executive. “Against the background of the enormous fleet of cars that we have in Germany alone, there can only be a compromise for the FDP on the fleet limits if the use of e-fuels is also possible,” Wissing said.

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Possible?

• Twitter Discloses Another Possible Government Censorship Effort (Turley)

An old saying, attributed to Henry David Thoreau, maintains that you do not have to find a trout in your glass to know someone is watering down the milk. This week Americans found a veritable school of trout in their milk — an unintentional demonstration by the Biden administration of why such a gathering of fish is often called a “lie.” In the 17th release of the “Twitter Files,” journalist Matt Taibbi disclosed that the U.S. government is funding a group that has supported the censorship of dissenting viewpoints on social media, including those of U.S. citizens. That may sound familiar. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote here that the congressionally created, federally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had supported the British-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

The index was widely ridiculed for targeting ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of disinformation; it sought to persuade advertisers to withdraw support for those sites, while listing their most liberal counterparts as among the most trustworthy. At the time, I noted that the Biden administration had played us for chumps. As we celebrated the demise of the infamous Disinformation Governing Board with its “Disinformation Nanny,” the Biden administration never disclosed a larger censorship program. Shortly after my column posted in The Hill, the NED wrote to me to say that it was discontinuing support for the GDI. Microsoft also was forced into retreat after it was shown to be pushing the GDI’s biased blacklist. Again, many celebrated a victory for free speech.

Yet, here we are again staring down at a trout in our milk. This week, Taibbi reported that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) may have supported a different disinformation blacklisting operation. The GEC controversy appears strikingly similar to the one involving the NED. Both have supported third-party organizations that carried out blacklisting. Taibbi contends that the GEC contracted with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), which sent suggested blacklists to Twitter; DFRLab says Taibbi’s report is incorrect and that it does not make content moderation decisions. Yet, even Twitter censors reportedly balked at the size of the suggested blacklists and lack of supporting evidence. One list submitted by the GEC included several CNN journalists and Western government accounts, according to Taibbi.

Twitter’s Patrick Conlon reportedly mocked the list by referring to network anchor Anderson Cooper, joking: “Not exactly Anderson’s besties, but CNN assets if you will.” Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of trust and safety, responded “omg” and “what a total crock.” It would be funny except for the fact that we know Twitter has admitted censoring many of those targeted by the government. Still, many congressional Democrats continue to oppose efforts to investigate government censorship efforts, unleashing a type of Red Scare 2.0 by accusing critics of supporting insurrectionists or being “Putin lovers.” Others have simply insisted that if you see a trout in your milk, it is just your opinion.

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https://twitter.com/i/status/1632298558022885376

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 10 2022

Aug 102022
 
 August 10, 2022  Posted by at 9:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Gustav Klimt Field of poppies 1907

 

• Is The US Preparing To Throw Zelensky Under The Bus? (Diesen)
• Zelensky Aide: Counterattack Claims Part Of Kiev’s ‘Information Warfare’ (RT)
• Welcome To The Third World (Matt Taibbi)
• FBI Even Searched Melania’s Wardrobe Inn Trump Raid (Devine)
• Judge Who OK’d Mar-a-Lago Raid Once Obama Donor, Jeffrey Epstein Lawyer (NYP)
• Trump Ally Rep. Scott Perry Says The FBIs Seized His Cellphone (Fox)
• EU Break-up Now Inevitable (Saxty)
• Z for Zorro (Batiushka)
• Hungary Offers Solution To Resume Russian Oil Supply (RT)
• Lies, Damned Lies, and the Jan. 6 Committee (Sperry)
• The Global Debt Scam – Day of Reckoning? (Salamah)
• How Greece Became Europe’s Worst Place For Press Freedom (Pol.eu)
• US Occupation Loots Most Of Syria’s Oil: Ministry (AlMa)
• Lockdowns Increases Obesity, And Obesity Increases Covid Risk (DM)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australia bombshell

 

 

Taiwan

 

 


EU imports of Russian Energy

1. Oil:
Jan – May 21: €25 bn
Jan – May 22: €43 bn
=> +71%

2. Gas:
Jan – May 21: €6 bn
Jan – May 22: €21 bn
=> +260%

3. Coal:
Jan – May 21: €1.5 bn
Jan – May 22: €4.0 bn
=> +170%

 


German front yr power futures have reached 411 €/MWh today.
Germany consumes about 500 TWh electricity annually. So at current prices the economy’s power bill stands at €205bn.
The 2010s average was €20bn.
The German electricity bill went up by €195bn. That’s 5% of GDP.

 

Myocarditis

 

 

 

 

“..there needs to be a fall guy to take the blame for the pending disaster..”

• Is The US Preparing To Throw Zelensky Under The Bus? (Diesen)

Until very recently, the US successfully upheld the international image of Zelensky as some sort of reincarnation of Winston Churchill. Washington dominated the information war in which the complexity of the proxy fight was simplified with dichotomous imagery of the two leaders. Zelensky and Putin were successfully portrayed as a virtuous democrat versus a vicious dictator, a victorious David versus a failing Goliath. Presenting conflicts as a struggle between good and evil is an ideal strategy to mobilize public support and to depict the lack of compromise as a moral position. However, when a war is lost and compromise is necessary, the narrative must be changed. President Joe Biden must defend his weak political position at home and allies must be reassured about American resolve, thus there needs to be a fall guy to take the blame for the pending disaster.

While Washington will continue to send more weapons to bleed Russia, it appears to be simultaneously preparing for defeat by no longer shielding Zelensky from criticism. sIt has been a remarkably difficult month, so far, for Zelensky in the Western media, which had previously withheld all criticism. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, closely linked to the White House, reported that “there is deep mistrust between the White House and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine – considerably more than has been reported.” Friedman also detailed Washington’s growing concerns about Ukrainian corruption and mismanagement, a topic that has been denounced as Russian propaganda since February. This is the same media that until recently repeated every line from Zelensky, including labeling the mass surrender in Mariupol as an “evacuation.” No more.

It is seemingly also no longer taboo to report on the internal divisions in Ukraine as a source of failure. The New York Times reports on Zelensky’s reckless purge of the military and security services, while the Washington Post accuses Zelensky of sidelining mayors and centralizing control over all recovery aid “to weaken any future political rivals.” Sky News, a very anti-Russian news agency, also aired a segment with the title “Zelensky ‘not all he’s portrayed as’ by Western media.”An anchor accused Zelensky of dismantling Ukrainian democracy by seizing control of the national media, banning political opposition parties, and arresting the opposition leader. All true, but previously taboo..

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“All public remarks by Ukrainian officials are part of information warfare against Russia..”

“He ruled out Kiev’s military defeat as a possible scenario, predicting that Western nations will funnel weapons to Ukraine regardless of the cost..”

• Zelensky Aide: Counterattack Claims Part Of Kiev’s ‘Information Warfare’ (RT)

All public remarks by Ukrainian officials are part of information warfare against Russia, Mikhail Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenksy, claimed in an interview on Tuesday. The comment came as Podolyak was discussing Kiev’s plans to take back the city of Kherson from Russia with the BBC. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed that a major counterattack was looming and that Russia was concentrating its forces in return, suggesting that a major battle in southern Ukraine was about to break out. Speaking to the British broadcaster, Podolyak said that “war is a dynamic process” that entails “a constant correction of tactical goals” and that he preferred to discuss “the possibility of lifting the blockade in broad terms” rather than particular maneuvers.

When pressured on the promises of a counteroffensive, he conceded that they could have been meant to deceive Russia. “Certainly, all public comments are part of information warfare. We need to demoralize the Russian army,” he said. The official erroneously called Kherson the largest city captured by Russia since attacking Ukraine in February, explaining its symbolic importance for Kiev. The port of Mariupol is bigger, the BBC noted in an editorial remark. Zelensky’s adviser claimed that Ukrainian forces were waging a “creative war,” as opposed to Russia, which he believes has little regard for its own casualties. “Russia hates us so much that it is ready to lose 100,000 of its people just to prove that it has the right to kill,” he declared.

Podolyak said that Zelensky will remain in power in Ukraine for as long as the armed conflict continues, dismissing the idea that the country could hold a presidential election before the hostilities end. Responding to the widely-used assertion that the government would fight “to the last Ukrainian,” he said the fight would be “to the last Russian citizen in Ukrainian territory.” He ruled out Kiev’s military defeat as a possible scenario, predicting that Western nations will funnel weapons to Ukraine regardless of the cost. Western nations won’t negotiate a truce with Russia at the expense of Ukraine “because the reputation of President Zelensky is such that no such talks can be held behind his back,”Podolyak said.

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“..you’ll quickly lose track if you try to count the named and unnamed intel spooks appearing in coverage today..”

• Welcome To The Third World (Matt Taibbi)

Headline from Politics Insider this morning: “Feds likely obtained ‘pulverizing’ amount of evidence ahead of searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, legal experts say.” Pulverizing! Hold that thought. We’ve reached the stage of American history where everything we see on the news must first be understood as political theater. In other words, the messaging layer of news now almost always dominates the factual narrative, with the latter often reported so unreliably as to be meaningless anyway. Yesterday’s sensational tale of the FBI raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of former president Donald Trump is no different. As of now, it’s impossible to say if Trump’s alleged offense was great, small, or in between. But this for sure is a huge story, and its hugeness extends in multiple directions, including the extraordinary political risk inherent in the decision to execute the raid.

If it backfires, if underlying this action there isn’t a very substantial there there, the Biden administration just took the world’s most reputable police force and turned it into the American version of the Tonton Macoute on national television. We may be looking at simultaneously the dumbest and most inadvertently destructive political gambit in the recent history of this country. The top story today in the New York Times, bylined by its top White House reporter, speculates this is about “delayed returning” of “15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives.” If that’s true, and it’s not tied to January 6th or some other far more serious offense, then the Justice Department just committed institutional suicide and moved the country many steps closer to once far-out eventualities like national revolt or martial law.

This is true no matter what you think of Trump. Despite the early reports of “cheers” in the West Wing, the mood in center-left media has already drifted markedly from the overnight celebration. The Times story today added a line missing from most early reports: “The search, however, does not mean prosecutors have determined that Mr. Trump committed a crime.” There are whispers throughout the business that editors are striking down certain jubilant language, and we can even see this playing out on cable, where the most craven of the networks’ on-air ex-spooks are crab-crawling backward from last night’s buzz-words: The hugeness of the story has become part of its explanation. An action so extreme, we’re told by expert after expert, could only be based upon “pulverizing” evidence.

Throughout the Trump years we’ve seen a numbing pattern of rhetorical slippage in coverage of investigations. The aforementioned Politics Insider story is no different. “Likely” evidence in the headline becomes more profound in the text. An amazing five bylined writers explain: Regardless of the raid’s focus legal experts quickly reached a consensus about it: A pile of evidence must have backed up the warrant authorizing the search. They then quoted a “former top official in the Justice Department’s National Security Division” — you’ll quickly lose track if you try to count the named and unnamed intel spooks appearing in coverage today — who said, “There’s every reason to think that there’s a plus factor in the quantum and quantity of evidence that the government already had to support probable cause in this case.”

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Theater. Bad theater, but still..

• FBI Even Searched Melania’s Wardrobe In Trump Raid (Devine)

FBI agents scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe and spent several hours combing through Donald Trump’s private office, breaking open his safe and rifling through drawers when they raided the former First Family’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Monday morning. The Post has learned that the search warrant used by the FBI to enter the palatial Palm Beach property focused solely on presidential records and evidence of classified information being stored there. A source close to the former president expressed concern that FBI agents or DOJ lawyers conducting the search could have “planted stuff” because they would not allow Trump’s attorneys inside the 128-room building to observe the operation, which lasted more than nine hours.


The raid by over 30 plain clothes agents from the Southern District of Florida and the FBI’s Washington Field Office extended through the Trump family’s entire 3,000-square-foot private quarters, as well as to a separate office and safe, and a locked basement storage room in which 15 cardboard boxes of material from the White House were stored. Feds arrived at 9 a.m. and didn’t leave until 6:30 p.m. An eyewitness to the raid said all of the boxes were confiscated by federal agents Monday, but it is unknown if anything else was taken as no itemized list of items was provided by the FBI.

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Nothing the FBI does can be clean.

• Judge Who OK’d Mar-a-Lago Raid Once Obama Donor, Jeffrey Epstein Lawyer (NYP)

The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort donated to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — months after he left the local US Attorney’s office to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier. Sources tell The Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an “unannounced raid on my home.”

Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.” Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release. According to the Herald, which cited court documents, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida US Attorney’s Office effective on New Year’s Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein’s cohorts the following day.

Epstein, who was found dead in August 2019 of an apparent suicide in the Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had hired a stable of high-powered lawyers for his defense in the late 2000s, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Ten months after starting work for Epstein’s co-conspirators, according to Federal Election Commission records, Reinhart gave $1,000 directly to the Obama campaign and another $1,000 to its fundraising arm, the Obama Victory Fund. Though the records show the judge made mostly small-dollar donations to his law firm’s political action committee in subsequent years, Reinhart also donated $500 to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign in November 2015.

Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit by two of Epstein’s victims that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018. In a 2011 affidavit, Reinhart denied he had done anything improper and insisted that since he was not involved in the federal investigation of Epstein, he was not privy to inside information about the case. However, in a 2013 court filing, Reinhart’s former colleagues contradicted him, saying that he had “learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter” while employed by the US Attorney’s Office.

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“My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government’s business.”

• Trump Ally Rep. Scott Perry Says The FBI Seized His Cellphone (Fox)

Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania says that the FBI has confiscated his cellphone. Perry, in an exclusive statement, told Fox News on Tuesday that while traveling with his family earlier in the day, he was approached by three FBI agents who handed him a warrant and requested that he turn over his cellphone. The confiscation of the congressman’s personal phone comes one day after FBI agents searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. “This morning, while traveling with my family, 3 FBI agents visited me and seized my cell phone. They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish.

“I’m outraged — though not surprised — that the FBI under the direction of Merrick Garland’s DOJ, would seize the phone of a sitting Member of Congress,” Perry said in his statement. “My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government’s business.” Perry asserted in his statement that “as with President Trump last night, DOJ chose this unnecessary and aggressive action instead of simply contacting my attorneys. These kinds of banana republic tactics should concern every Citizen — especially considering the decision before Congress this week to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to further persecute law-abiding Citizens.”

Perry, a five-term congressman and loyal Trump ally, is an original member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and took over as the group’s leader at the beginning of the year. Perry was also a strong supporter of Trump’s repeated unproven claims that his 2020 election loss to now-President Biden was due to massive voter fraud. Perry has been a target of interest of the Democratic dominated January 6 House select committee that is investigating the deadly 2021 attack on the Capitol by right wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt the congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory. Perry was in communication numerous times with the Trump White House in the days and weeks ahead of the storming of the Capitol.

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“Since Orbán returned to power in 2010 marriages in Hungary have doubled, abortions have halved, divorces have hit record lows, and the birth rate has risen by a quarter.”

• EU Break-up Now Inevitable (Saxty)

Back in 2020, Dutch Prime Minister – Mark Rutte – asked (perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek as to whether they might have an EU without that troublesome duo of Hungary and Poland? It was a telling moment, hinting at frustration in western Europe with what many there see as recalcitrant ex-communist states. Then in 2021, Rutte said Hungary had no business being in the European Union anymore owing to the banning of LGBT issues to under-18s. While Rutte said he could not push Hungary out of the EU by himself he somewhat candidly added: “The long-term aim is to bring Hungary to its knees on this issue”. Now bad blood is brewing between progressive Brussels and conservative-nationalist central and eastern Europe over the tying of EU cash to rule of law issues, something Hungary and Poland see as a thinly-veiled attempt to impose liberal values upon them.

To some extent, central and eastern Europe got a bait and switch with the EU, believing they were joining an enhanced free trade bloc, they ended up joining a political union with a strong progressive ideology. That said, Hungary and Poland have been in the club long enough by now to know the rules. Budapest and Warsaw must, by now, be aware the EU is not going to change to suit them. Officially, majorities in most central and eastern EU states support EU membership. In reality, however, most back being part of a beefed-up trade alliance, not an ideologically-fixed political union. Plus, the EU cannot chuck the two out. As Brexiteers know, the only way out is Article 50 and it must be triggered by the country in question. Article 7 can impose sanctions, including losing the right to vote in the European Council.

However, this requires unanimity, and Hungary and Poland – not to mention other central and eastern European states – generally have one another’s backs. How much longer then can Hungary and Poland keep doing this dance, and how much longer can both sides of the EU divide ignore the cultural Iron Curtain which has caused a schism on the Continent? Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is not just an irritant to Brussels, he sees the world from an entirely different perspective. Since Orbán returned to power in 2010 marriages in Hungary have doubled, abortions have halved, divorces have hit record lows, and the birth rate has risen by a quarter.

Orbán has also overseen a constitution with references to God and Christianity; funded Christian schools, and banned content deemed to promote LGBT issues to minors. None of this has endeared him to Brussels but has proved extremely popular in central and eastern Europe. But it is almost certainly the case that what Brussels sees as Hungary’s and Poland’s draconian policies is a direct reaction to what Budapest and Warsaw feel is coming their way from Brussels.

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“Today the question is, after the UK, who next? A popular choice is Hungary. But who knows? Apart from the imbecile-afflicted UK, there is already political turbulence in three EU countries, Bulgaria, Estonia and Italy.”

• Z for Zorro (Batiushka)

The collapse of the EU has never been a question of ‘if’, only of ‘when’. The decomposition of the Brussels Yoke of unelected bureaucrats has already long been visible and its collapse foretold years ago. First there was Grexit (which was averted at the last moment at huge cost), then Brexit, which actually happened, and then was an alphabet jungle of Frexit, Italexit, Nexit, Dexit, Polexit etc. Today the question is, after the UK, who next? A popular choice is Hungary. But who knows? Apart from the imbecile-afflicted UK, there is already political turbulence in three EU countries, Bulgaria, Estonia and Italy.

It all sounds as if these are only ‘the beginning of troubles’. Winter is coming to Europe on 1 December with probable food riots, looting and mass civil disobedience, caused by the refusal and inability to pay soaring energy bills because of the EU millionaire elite’s refusal to buy Russian gas. The only way out is if European countries free themselves from the shackles of the USA in order to find their natural places as part of the Eurasian, or rather, Afro-Eurasian, world. This liberation deserves a sign. We can think of no sign more topical – or more native to the Western world – than the sign ‘Z’. Let me explain. Z was the sign of a fictional Spanish-Mexican character, El Zorro, created by an American author in 1919. Zorro is portrayed as a masked, nineteenth-century avenger who defends the common people and native peoples of Spanish-run California against an oppressive imperialist dictator in Madrid, his corrupt and tyrannical local servants and other evildoers.

His name Zorro, (in Spanish, ‘The Fox’), comes from his foxlike cunning. Using the tip of his rapier, he leaves his mark, the initial ‘Z’, on his defeated enemies and on objects in order to sign his presence. However, this purely fictional Zorro goes back to several real figures, notably to three main characters, real ones, indeed so real that they have become myths in European history. These are: Eadric was one of many Englishmen, well-known in their day, who lived in the wilder parts of England after 1066 in order to fight back against the barbaric Norman occupiers. Called ‘the Wild’ or ‘the Woodsman’, Eadric was a nobleman (‘Cild’ in Old English) and landowner in the hills of the west of England. (Remarkably, Eadric’s descendants inherited his lands in a place called Acton Scott in the west of England and these lands still belong to his descendants, the Actons, after a thousand years). Here Eadric led the English Resistance to the Norman occupation and was active in 1068–70.

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“Transneft, announced on Monday that attempts to pay Ukraine for transit have been blocked due to EU sanctions.”

• Hungary Offers Solution To Resume Russian Oil Supply (RT)

The Hungarian oil and gas company MOL confirmed on Tuesday that Russian crude supplies via the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline stopped a few days ago, and said it had initiated negotiations to assume obligations to pay for transit. The company responsible for Russian oil supplies to the EU, Transneft, announced on Monday that attempts to pay Ukraine for transit have been blocked due to EU sanctions. According to news outlet Origo, MOL has offered to pay transit fees on behalf of Transneft, but has not received a reply from Ukraine. “Although MOL has enough reserves for several weeks, it is working on a solution and has also initiated negotiations on the assumption of the fee obligation,” the energy company said in a statement.


On Monday, Transneft announced that Ukraine had suspended Russian oil flows to parts of central Europe since August 4 because Western sanctions prevented Moscow from making payments for transit. According to the Russian company, the suspension of pipeline flows has affected Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Transneft said it was working on alternative options for the transfer of funds. Druzhba, which is one of the longest pipeline networks in the world, carries crude some 4,000km from the eastern part of European Russia to refineries in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Russia normally supplies about 250,000 barrels of oil per day via the southern leg of the route. The northern branch of the Druzhba pipeline running through Belarus to Poland and Germany continues to operate as normal, according to Transneft.

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“While in some cases, it lied by omission, in others, it lied outright.”

• Lies, Damned Lies, and the Jan. 6 Committee (Sperry)

The Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6 has adjourned for a well-deserved summer break. Misleading the public is exhausting work. A careful review of the official transcripts of its eight long hearings shows the committee repeatedly made connections that weren’t there, took events and quotes out of context, exaggerated the violence of the Capitol rioters, and omitted key exculpatory evidence otherwise absolving former President Donald Trump of guilt. While in some cases, it lied by omission, in others, it lied outright. It also made a number of unsubstantiated charges based on the secondhand accounts—hearsay testimony—of a young witness with serious credibility problems.

These weren’t off-the-cuff remarks. Panelists didn’t misspeak. Their statements were tightly scripted and loaded into teleprompters, which they read verbatim. In other words, the committee deliberately chummed out disinformation to millions of viewers of not just cable TV, but also the Big Three TV networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—which agreed to preempt regular daytime and even primetime programming to air the Democratic-run hearings. And because Democrats refused to allow dissenting voices on the panel or any cross-examination of witnesses, viewers had no reference points to understand how they, along with the two Trump-hating Republicans they allowed on the committee, shaded the truth.

This charade of an honest investigation appears to have had the desired effect. Polls show the Jan. 6 hearings hurt Trump, who plans to run again, with independents. Unaffiliated voters have grown more likely to blame Trump for the Capitol riot and to show support for Democrats in the midterms, according to a new Morning Consult/Politico survey.

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“..a mere 0.88% (US$ 866 Bill) is owed by Africa comprising 54 countries. And even then, more than half of the African debt is owed by just three countries…”

• The Global Debt Scam – Day of Reckoning? (Salamah)

Global debt is now claimed to exceed $300 Trillion, while the poor countries’ debt continues to rise in percentage terms – The Poor are always the culprits. It is all a matter of definition, you set it according to your understanding, objectives, or motives. We can make it a lot more alarming by theoretically adding the liabilities of the derivatives and futures markets which could be considered hypothetical debts should they be allowed to become due; then, global debts would be in the Zillions. Economists just love creating definitions, no matter how practical or impractical they are, or how narrow and rigid they become, and end up wagging the dog! On a closer look, however, it transpires that the US$ 300 Trillion global debt includes the internal and external debts of all countries.


In other words, it probably includes Aunt Jemima’s debt to her local grocer. While this is important and helps understand how deep the world has fallen into the hole it has dug, it is probably of higher priority to address the External Debt of countries; debt owed to parties outside their borders. These are the debts that will immediately impact countries’ currency exchange rates, ability to import especially food and energy, and fund development. They are quicker to trigger inflation and disrupt economies and societies. Accordingly, when we look at the Global External Debts, we are taken aback by their distribution. (Bear in mind that the actual numbers are approximations as they cover different years as well as slightly differ from one compiler to another, however they all point in the same direction):

What is striking here is that approx. 80% of global external debt is owed by the advanced countries (the US, its close Allies, and Europe), while a mere 0.88% (US$ 866 Bill) is owed by Africa comprising 54 countries. And even then, more than half of the African debt is owed by just three countries. As for Asia, it owes 3.62% (US$ 3.5 Trill) distributed among 42 countries with the top 4 countries owing half of it. Similarly, 29 Latin American countries owe just 2.25% (US$ 2.2 Trill) with the top three responsible for more than half. Most financial data, including the World Bank and IMF, kick off with a display of debt as a percentage of GDP (a ratio) and relegate the actual nominal debt figures to links that are harder to find or access. This approach may be useful to assess the size and seriousness of the debt problem in an individual economy, but it is not the only tool.


A country’s ability to pay its debts over a period of time can also be affected by inflation, which could falsely paint a rosy shrinking debt-to-GDP picture and vice versa, at least in the short term. Also, a sudden contraction or bounce up of GDP could occur as a result of multiple causes such as wars, market collapses or spikes, and rebounds in economies after sharp falls such as the ‘post covid’ temporary activity. Hence, the actual debt numbers add an important aspect to any analysis. Not surprisingly, the global Debt-to-GDP percentages/ratios tend to tally with the conclusions of the above table of actual numbers. The ratios of advanced nations and Europe are way, way higher than those of the poorer countries. In fact, quite a few of their ratios make Japan, with its famously excessive ratio, appear to be thrifty.

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I’m not sure this is helpful. The trend is everywhere. The farmers in Holland get very little coverage. But now Rutte can say: Look at Greece, it’s much worse…

• How Greece Became Europe’s Worst Place For Press Freedom (Pol.eu)

Reporters across Europe raced to follow up on the piece, which provided evidence of possible criminal behavior. Interview requests poured into Germany’s Der Spiegel, one of the outlets behind the story. One country, however, was noticeably quiet on the matter: Greece. “You’d be hard pressed to find any reference to it in the pro-government press, which dominates, especially the airwaves,” said Giorgos Christides, a reporter at Der Spiegel. “In Greece, there’s two parallel media universes.” The moment illustrated what journalists, media analysts, civil rights groups and EU investigators have been warning about for years. Greece, they say, is now seeing the troubling, violent and oppressive results of a years-long erosion of press freedom in the country.

It’s a problem, they say, born during the Greek financial crisis, which destabilized the country, polarized its politics and sapped media outlets of the profits that helped them stay independent. News organizations became increasingly partisan. Threats, attacks and surveillance targeting journalists rose. The pandemic only made things worse. Press conferences were halted and essentially never came back. Questions arose over whether the government was favoring friendly outlets with taxpayer funds. A new law claimed to curb misinformation but is fueling concerns that journalists could be tossed in jail for critical reporting. And just last week, the spying web that had ensnared journalists blossomed into a full-blown scandal that forced two top officials to resign. “Due to the financial situation, media owners have handed over the keys of their businesses to the government,” said Tasos Telloglou, an investigative reporter in Greece.

“This, combined with a government that believes that it does nothing wrong, is an explosive combination.” The situation reflects a broader trend across Europe. Demonstrators going after reporters. Demonization from officials. Public funds withheld. Countries from Germany to Luxembourg to Slovenia, Poland and Hungary have all slipped in annual press freedom rankings. But Greece fell to the bottom of all European countries on the latest list. The Greek government insists the fears are vastly overblown. Press freedom is enshrined in the country’s constitution and there is no press censorship, officials note, correctly. “Greece is a country where everyone can write and publish whatever they want about anyone, without any censorship and no government control,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the European Parliament in a recent debate, holding up two newspaper front pages featuring negative articles about the government.

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Shameless. The Russians should kick them out.

• US Occupation Loots Most Of Syria’s Oil: Ministry (AlMa)

The Syrian Oil Ministry revealed that the US occupation loots the majority of Syria’s oil, knowing that the daily production of the eastern oil fields is 80.3 thousand barrels.” During a meeting held to discuss its work plans and the work of its subsidiaries during the first half of this year, the Syrian Ministry of Oil stated that “the amount of oil production during the first half of this year amounted to about 14.5 million barrels, with an average daily production of 80.3 thousand barrels.” The Ministry added that the barrels are delivered to refineries at a rate of 14.2 thousand barrels per day, stressing that the US occupation forces and their mercenaries steal up to 66,000 barrels per day from fields in areas in the eastern region that they occupy.


“Around 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced, with a daily production rate of 11.3 million cubic meters, of which 11.1 million cubic meters is renewable natural gas,” it stated. The Ministry detailed that “82% of the gas produced is delivered to the Ministry of Electricity, 3% to the Ministry of Industry, and 15% to the Ministry of Oil.” It is worth noting that the daily average quantity delivered to the Ministry of Electricity is 8.6 million cubic meters, as per the Ministry. [..] Besides being an occupation force that backs armed groups for its own operations and agenda in the region, the US occupation forces continue to steal Syrian oil by smuggling it from their bases in Syria to their bases in Iraq. Convoys of tens of vehicles, including tankers loaded with stolen oil from oil fields occupied by US forces in Syria, are frequently seen crossing toward northern Iraq, in addition to trucks loaded with military equipment.

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“.. the most important independent risk factor for the development of severe infections in youths..”

• Lockdowns Increases Obesity, And Obesity Increases Covid Risk (DM)

One of Australia’s top Covid-19 experts says lockdowns have drastically affected the health of children as a study shows two years of coronavirus restrictions have made people fatter and unhealthier. Professor Peter Collignon, an influential infectious diseases physician with the Australian National University, shared a medical study on his Twitter in which American experts researched the link between the pandemic response and obesity in children and adolescents. ‘Lockdown measures affected healthy lifestyle behaviors through modification of dietary habits, reduction of physical activity and alteration of sleep patterns, and also increased the levels of stress and anxiety, overall promoting weight gain and obesity,’ Prof Collignon wrote on Twitter.

‘Paediatric overweight/obesity—an alarming epidemic of increasing proportions, before Covid-19, has been demonstrated to be the most important independent risk factor for the development of severe infections in youths, requiring admission to hospital/ICUs,’ Prof Collignon said. The paper published by the National Library of Medicine concluded, ‘the dramatic lifestyle changes forced by Covid-19-related lockdown promoted weight gain, with a stronger impact on obese subjects, at higher risk of severe infection.’ The study looked at both the risk factors of lockdown-induced weight increase and the impact of obesity on the risk of hospital admission in children and adolescents. The study also concluded those who were classified as obese had a higher probability of being hospitalised compared to the normal weight population and Covid-19 and obesity represent ‘epidemic conditions with detrimental impact’.

Epidemiologist Professor Catherine Bennett says the full effect of Covid restrictions have had on the obesity epidemic are not yet fully grasped ‘It is one of those things we have been concerned about yet with obesity the challenge is those rates have been rising anyway, so the question is how much can be attributed to the increase from restrictions from Covid?’ Prof Bennett said. ‘Constraints on individual liberties, exercise, organised sport disruption in and outside of schools would all contribute to the nature of the problem. ‘It is really important that we invest in actively understanding the impacts of Covid restrictions. It is crucial so we can put in place things that might help minimise the long term impacts and address the impacts in terms of obesity and chronic illness.’

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Man

 

 

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cloud seeding


 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 6 2022

May 062022
 
 May 6, 2022  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Nude on a beach 1929

 

• NATO’s New World (Vilches)
• Ukraine’s Forces Told To Hold The Line Where Russia Pulverizes Them (MoA)
• For Those Who Still Don’t Understand (Sergey Glazyev)
• Why is the White House Bragging About Killing Russians in Ukraine? (CTH)
• Sleepy Joe’s $33 Billion Abomination (Stockman)
• Tulsi Gabbard Bashes Biden For Calling Millions Of Americans Terrorists (Blaze)
• Elon Musk Expected to Axe Twitter’s Censorship Team, Become CEO (BN)
• Musk Blasts Soros ‘Dark Money Groups’ Threatening Twitter Advertisers (ZH)
• Musk Summoned to Parliament for his Pledge to Restore Free Speech (Turley)
• Five Steps to Free Speech in Social Media: A Musk Roadmap (Turley)
• 2000 Mules (AG)
• FDA Limits Use of Johnson and Johnson Vaccine Due to Blood Clots (CTH)
• McCullough: 30% of US Pilots May Have COVID Jab-Induced Heart Conditions (ET)
• UN: Obesity Levels In Europe At ‘Epidemic Proportions’ (AP)
• EU Officials Being Trained To Meditate To Help Fight Climate Crisis (G.)

 

 

 

 

Tucker MAGA

 

 

 

 

Psaki abortion

 

 

Celente

 

 

“..per the Führer´s own description, such lebensraum was to be found – oh coincidence — “in the Ukraine and intermediate lands of eastern Europe”

• NATO’s New World (Vilches)

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss recently experienced her 15 minutes of glory with a blatant hissy-fit rant policy speech at a London´s Mansion House banquet. She posited that the collective West now needs “a global NATO” to pursue geopolitics anew. Publically, Ms Liz Truss tapped her well-known Rule Britannia Anglo-Saxon exceptionalistic mind-set which now would badly require a much larger “lebensraum”. By the way, the Rule Britannia lyrics ´clearly clearly clearly´ let the world know that “…at heaven’s command…Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”. No way, slaves will exist, but Britons should make sure it´s the other way around, see ? So beware… With an AUKUS core, the strategic concept is “all for one, and one for all” just like ´The Three Musketeers´ except that the world´s livelihood is for real, not a novel. Liz Truss is not a cartoon character either, she is today´s United Kingdom Foreign Secretary.

Lebensraum Ukraine would only be the starting point says Truss very proud of British colonial history. Actually it´d have to be even far larger than what Adolf Hitler originally foresaw with his Nazi foreign policy dictum left on record in “Mein Kampf”. Unbelievably, and per the Führer´s own description, such lebensraum was to be found – oh coincidence — “in the Ukraine and intermediate lands of eastern Europe”… Mind you readers this is a historical certainty, unfortunately not fiction. Curiously enough, WW2 ended when Germany´s dictator shot his lover and himself in the temple only four years after the Wehrmacht had invaded Ukraine pursuing its much-needed Caucasus´ oil. So paraphrasing Mark Twain, and relating Nazis to Ukraine and oil …with the Russians defending and finally winning… history doesn´t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.

But no Sir, what Adolf Hitler conceived 90 years ago today is not large enough at all for NATO, sorry. Per Liz Truss (more on her later) it´d be a flashing new “Network of Liberty” yet global in nature, understand ? The time and place of this new “Global NATO” setting Ms Truss says is (1) right now and (2) throughout the whole world, okay ? Furthermore, in the meantime and so as not to waste valuable time and resources, Liz Truss urges current (limited) “European” NATO to send more “heavy weapons, tanks, and also airplanes” to Ukraine ASAP “digging deep into our inventories and ramping up production”. Her obvious Russo-Europhobic objective is to split Eurasia into fractions according to the very British well-proven ´divide and conquer´ philosophy.

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“The order was given because the ‘west’ has pushed the Ukrainian president to not make peace with Russia. The consequence will be the assured destruction of the Ukrainian military.”

• Ukraine’s Forces Told To Hold The Line Where Russia Pulverizes Them (MoA)

The Russian military forces are grinding down Ukrainian ground forces by extensive use of heavy artillery. The Ukrainian artillery has been destroyed or lacks ammunition.The Ukrainian forces have orders to stay in their position and to hold the line. That only makes sure that Russian artillery strikes will destroy them. The order was given because the ‘west’ has pushed the Ukrainian president to not make peace with Russia. The consequence will be the assured destruction of the Ukrainian military. There are claims that the Russian progress in Ukraine has been slow or has even come to a halt:


“The United States assessed last week that Russian troops were making “slow and uneven” progress in the Donbas, often of no more than “several kilometers … on any given day, just because they don’t want to run out too far ahead of their logistics and sustainment lines,” one senior U.S. official told journalists. But in its daily reports, the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian forces made no confirmed ground attacks on Monday or Tuesday. It said a Ukrainian artillery strike April 30 on a Russian command headquarters near Izium has slowed the Russian push, and noted that, farther north, a Ukrainian counterattack Monday pushed Russian forces back 25 miles east of Kharkiv.”

Those claims do not hold up to reality. As Clausewitz wrote about the Schwerpunkt in ‘On War’: “[N]o matter what the central feature of the enemy’s power may be—the point on which your efforts must converge—the defeat and destruction of his fighting force remains the best way to begin, and in every case will be a very significant feature of the campaign.” Basing our comments on general experience, the acts we consider most important for the defeat of the enemy are the following: “Destruction of his army, if it is at all significant. Seizure of his capital if it is not only the center of administration but also that of social, professional, and political activity. Delivery of an effective blow against his principal ally if that ally is more powerful than he. Accordingly the Russian military is tasked with demilitarizing the Ukraine, Clausewitz’ task one, and that is what it is doing.


Russia is using the best available means to destroy the Ukrainian military. On the ground that means ruthless systematic mass use of artillery. Reports about the high morale of the Ukrainian soldiers who halt Russian advances are copium when compared with the reality of the battlefield. From the preface of the book King of Battle: Artillery in World War: “Artillery dominated the battlefields of World War I. That was seen in various ways, from wounding patterns and doctors’ clinical data, to memoirs, diaries, and letters, through to changed military doctrine after the war. No nation that had experienced significant ground combat would blithely assume morale could replace firepower. Artillery even holds the dubious distinction of causing a new diagnosis, shellshock.”

Azov Mariupol

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“..color revolutions” financed by the Comprador oligarchy under the promise of unfreezing assets seized in the US-European jurisdiction..”

• For Those Who Still Don’t Understand (Sergey Glazyev)

A special military operation (SVO) revealed a plan prepared in advance by the US power and financial elite to seize power in Russia. It includes the following components and stages.

1. Wear out the Russian armed forces in a war with well-trained and directly controlled by the Pentagon fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, “stitched” by the Nazis with a vertical of officers appointed by the US and British special services. Turn the population of Ukraine into zombies infected with Russophobia. At the same time, incite the international community against Russia, making accusations of war crimes and genocide against its leadership. On this basis, confiscate Russia’s foreign currency assets and impose total sanctions against it, causing the maximum possible damage. This stage is actually completed.

2. Terrorize the Russian population with shelling of border settlements and military infrastructure, sabotage of transport, and hacker attacks. Hit the public consciousness with a flood of negative fake news and anti-government propaganda through social networks. To impose, through their agents of influence in the financial and economic authorities, an economic policy that blocks the mobilization of resources, including: inflating interest rates, continuing the export of capital, encouraging currency and financial speculation, manipulating the ruble exchange rate, and inflating prices. Thus, the sanctions can be repeatedly aggravated and provoke a collapse in production and a decline in living standards. This stage is in full swing.

3. Provoking protest moods and destructive socio-political actions aimed at overthrowing the legitimate authorities against the background of falling living standards and losses in the course of their activities. The use of the entire arsenal of methods for organizing “color revolutions” financed by the Comprador oligarchy under the promise of unfreezing assets seized in the US-European jurisdiction. At the same time, we are preparing the organizational and ideological foundations for separatist actions in the regions. This stage is under active development.

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“Perhaps because the only historic way out of a deep economic recession is a war or housing starts?”

• Why is the White House Bragging About Killing Russians in Ukraine? (CTH)

Does Joe Biden intend to take the U.S. into a direct war with Russia? Perhaps because the only historic way out of a deep economic recession is a war or housing starts? Perhaps, because they need a bigger distraction from the political impact of their own policies? Those questions need to be asked and answered quickly, because the White House is about to flip the switch from a “proxy war” into an actual hot war between the United States and Russia. How do we know? Because the Biden administration is openly bragging about their specific military operations inside Ukraine that are killing Russians. Consider:

NYT: “The United States provided intelligence that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet last month, another sign that the administration is easing its self-imposed limitations on how far it will go in helping Ukraine fight Russia, U.S. officials said.” NYT:”The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials.”

Why would Joe Biden be bragging about killing Russians in Ukraine if he wasn’t trying to provoke us into a hot war? “The administration has sought to keep much of the battlefield and maritime intelligence it is sharing with the Ukrainians secret out of fear it will be seen as an escalation and provoke President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia into a wider war. But in recent weeks, the United States has sped heavier weapons to Ukraine and requested an extraordinary $33 billion in additional military, economic and humanitarian aid from Congress, demonstrating how quickly American restraints on support for Ukraine are shifting.”

Priest

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“In the target practice galleries of Washington politics, Vlad became the Donald’s avatar.”

• Sleepy Joe’s $33 Billion Abomination (Stockman)

Donald Trump has been well relegated to the sidelines of America’s political debate, but the TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) lives on, more virulent than ever. The latter is what’s behind Washington’s descent into the current mindless Ukraine war fever—an outbreak of irrationality that makes even the post-9/11 hysteria seem like an orderly discourse. At the center of this madness, of course, is Vladimir Putin, the Devil Incarnate. Prior to February 24th he had attained that designation in Imperial Washington not just because of his rough methods of governance in Russia or small time military forays in the 2008 South Ossetia/Georgia dispute or in putting down alleged terrorists in Chechnya, but because according to the RussiaGate hoax he had thrown the election to Donald Trump in 2016, thereby shockingly interrupting the rule of the bipartisan duopoly.

Accordingly, for the next four years the apparatus of official Washington–including the MSM in cahoots with the national security state—did not cease in its vilification of Putin via the running RussiaGate Hoax, the phony Mueller investigation, the rogue impeachment proceedings and the nonstop MSM linkage of Trump’s unwelcome presence in the Oval Office with the nefarious doings of Vlad Putin. At length, the TDS got so virulent and all-consuming inside the beltway that the resulting enmity toward Donald Trump became coterminous with the demonization of Putin. Consequently, when Trump got ushered off the stage (barely) by the American electorate in November 2020, Washington’s war on the Donald simply got re-focused with fevered intensity on Putin. In the target practice galleries of Washington politics, Vlad became the Donald’s avatar.

Needless to say, with the politicians in both parties foaming at the mouth against Putin, the Deep State and military-industrial complex had a field day hyping Russia into a national security threat that was not remotely justified, but which did massively distort policy. That includes perpetuating the Donald’s insanely bloated national security budget even further to $813 billion in the FY 2023 Biden request; stonewalling Russia’s reasonable proposals of December to reset security arrangements in eastern Europe, which would have precluded the devastation now besetting Ukraine entirely; and, after February 24th, turning the intramural dispute between Russia and its historic vassal and step-child, Ukraine, into a purported history-defining contest between peaceful Democracy and belligerent Autocracy—a struggle that justified launching a global Sanctions War against the very essence of the dollar-based payments and trading system upon which America’s tenuous prosperity precariously rests.

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“You remember when his attorney general said, you know, anyone who holds extremist or anti-authority views will be targeted for investigation and potential prosecution by their domestic terrorist unit..”

• Tulsi Gabbard Bashes Biden For Calling Millions Of Americans Terrorists (Blaze)

President Joe Biden lashed out at the “MAGA crowd” and supporters of former President Donald Trump on Wednesday. The harsh and derogatory disparagement against tens of millions of Americans prodded former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard to condemn President Biden. On Wednesday, Biden suggested that the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade was a slippery slope. Biden proposed a hypothetical situation, “What happens if you have states change the law saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children?” President Biden told reporters at the White House, “Is that legit under the way the decision is written? What are the next things that are going to be attacked?” “Because this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history,” Biden said, making a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

[..] Gabbard was incensed by Biden’s incendiary remarks and slammed the president during an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.” “When you look at the President of the United States of America calling millions of Americans, essentially terrorists, people who politically opposed him or voted against him, he’s calling them terrorists in an attempt to intimidate them into silence. And we know this because we’ve heard this before from both him and his attorney general.” Gabbard pointed to the Justice Department’s newly-formed “Domestic Terrorism Unit” that will target the “elevated threat from domestic violent extremists.” “You remember when his attorney general said, you know, anyone who holds extremist or anti-authority views will be targeted for investigation and potential prosecution by their domestic terrorist unit,” Gabbard said.

“So he’s essentially saying that this, quote-unquote ‘MAGA’ crowd are worse than terrorists. This is outrageous.” “And so for every American who’s watching, every American who’s seen this, no matter how you feel about the MAGA crowd, this is an authoritarian assault on our freedom,” the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii proclaimed. “And we need to stand together very strongly against this attempt to intimidate and silence anyone who holds political views that are different from or opposed to what this president and his administration are furthering. This is an assault on our democracy.”

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“I’m on the warpath!” he declared.”

• Elon Musk Expected to Axe Twitter’s Censorship Team, Become CEO (BN)

Billionaire tech entrepreneuer Elon Musk is “on the warpath.” Musk is now “expected to serve as a temporary CEO of Twitter for a few months after he completes his $44 billion takeover of the social media company,” according to CNBC’s David Faber. The Tesla founder and CEO has the Woke establishment in full meltdown, even reportedly bringing the Big Tech platform’s Trump-banning chief counsel Vijaya Gadde to tears. She’s now expected to be axed. Musk, known for his cryptic tweets, alluded to shaking up the leadership team; of course, he did it with a meme. The context for the meme was provided by Newsmax’s Benny Johnson. It regards an interview between Tim Pool and the Twitter chief counsel herself.

“So your platform restricts speech?” Pool asked. “Our platform promotes speech unless people violate our rules,” Gadde replied. “In a specific direction,” he said. “In any direction,” she argued. “It’s about a pattern and practice of violating our rules.” Pool pointed out the obvious: “You have a pattern and practice of banning only one faction of people.” Then, Pool cited a report from Quillette. It found that out of 22 high-profile bannings from 2015, “21 of them were only on one side of the cultural debate.” “But I don’t look at the political spectrum of people when I’m looking at their tweets,” she claimed.


Musk has big plans for one of the most influential social media platforms. At the Met Gala on Saturday, he discussed his vision with the Associated Press. “Well, I mean, the goal that I have, should everything come to fruition with Twitter, is to have a service that is broadly — is as broadly inclusive as possible where ideally most of America is on it and talking!” Musk told the AP. “I think just generally, the — I’m looking for something that’s like I said as broadly inclusive as possible, that’s as trusted as possible as a system, and I hope we are successful in that regard,” he continued. “I’ve also vowed this publicly that we have to get rid of the bots, trolls, scams, and everything,” he added. “That’s obviously diminishing the user experience and we don’t want people to get tricked out of their money and that kind of thing.” “I’m on the warpath!” he declared.

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“Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low..”

• Musk Blasts Soros ‘Dark Money Groups’ Threatening Twitter Advertisers (ZH)

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has the world’s elites in panic mode – with the Biden administration launching a “Disinformation Governance Board” days after his announcement…followed by the United States, the EU, and 32 non-EU countries announcing a “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” that includes language to require web services to remove illegal content and prevent ‘harm’ to users – which is code for mean tweets, among other things. Another globalist, Bill Gates, is talking greasy after Musk compared the world’s former richest man to the pregnant man emoji. Musk’s purchase also prompted a constellation of 26 Soros-linked NGOs to sign a letter expressing concern about the plan – writing that “Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety, especially among those already most vulnerable and marginalized.”


The authors that under Musk’s management, “Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached, polluting our information ecosystem in a time where trust in institutions and news media is already at an all-time low,” adding “Your ad dollars can either fund Musk’s vanity project or hold him to account. We call on you to demand Musk uphold these basic standards of community trust and safety, and to pull your advertising spending from Twitter if they are not.” Those advertising on Twitter would risk their company associating “with a platform amplifying hate, extremism, health misinformation, and conspiracy theorists,” according to the letter. A quick look at the signatories:

Musk responded to the campaign against him by asking “Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …” adding “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

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“..Clinton and others hope that the Europeans can replace corporate censorship with good old-fashioned state censorship…”

• Musk Summoned to Parliament for his Pledge to Restore Free Speech (Turley)

I previously wrote about Hillary Clinton’s call on European countries to pass censorship laws to force social media companies like Twitter to regulate speech even after Elon Musk’s pledge to restore free speech to Twitter. Now the Parliament has called on Musk to testify and to explain his alarming pledge to restore free speech. The Biden Administration’s Disinformation Governance Board head, Nina Jankowisz, previously called upon Great Britain to impose state censorship rules. That call has grown since Musk’s purchase. Until now, a unified front of corporate censors was able to maintain an extensive system of censorship with the encouragement of politicians and pundits, including Joe Biden and Democratic members .

The head of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Julian Knight has assured her countrymen that they can stay calm and censor on. She issued a letter for Musk to appear before the committee to answer for his terrifying suggestion of free speech: “At a time when social media companies face the prospect of tighter regulations around the world, we’re keen to learn more about how Mr Musk will balance his clear commitment to free speech with new obligations to protect Twitter’s users from online harms.”

Like the EU’s censorship plans under the Digital Services Act, the proposed Online Safety Bill would introduce state censorship through the purview of Ofcom (The Office of Communications), the broadcasting regulator in Britain. It would allow the company to fine firms up to ten percent of their global revenue should they violate ill-defined “harm” standards. If passed, Clinton and others hope that the Europeans can replace corporate censorship with good old-fashioned state censorship. This includes confiscatory fines for anything deemed “grossly offensive.“ The bill would allow countries like Great Britain to impose censorship on the rest of the world.

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“These challenges are difficult but pale in comparison to reinventing space travel.”

• Five Steps to Free Speech in Social Media: A Musk Roadmap (Turley)

5. Protect against Surrogate State Censors.

As it became more likely that Musk could buy Twitter, there was a notable shift in the comments of pro-censorship figures. Hillary Clinton, who has long been viewed as hostile to free speech values, went to Twitter to call on the European Union to quickly pass the Digital Services Act in Europe to force censorship “before it’s too late.” That time table appears to be the Musk takeover when the public will suddenly have a free speech alternative to the once solid alliance of censorship among social media companies. Since figures like Clinton cannot count on corporate surrogates to censor, they are returning to good old-fashioned state censorship. If the DSA is passed, they hope to force Twitter to resume censoring material – a warning echoed by EU officials this week. Congress needs to act to blunt such an attack on American companies seeking to restore free speech values.

At the same time, the United Kingdom is pushing its own Online Safety Act and recently Musk was summoned to Parliament to answer for his alarming suggestion of restoring free speech on social media. The British are assuring citizens to “stay calm and censor on” despite Musk’s pledge. It is threatening to take ten percent of the company’s profits if Musk does not censor users. Musk will have to create firewall or siloed systems for countries forcing censorship. These systems should post tweets with a warning that these users are being subjected to national censorship standards while protecting U.S. users from having their free speech reduced to the lower common denominator.

These challenges are difficult but pale in comparison to reinventing space travel. The greatest asset that Musk brings to Twitter beyond a deep pocket and deep faith in free speech is his legendary creativity. He tends to focus on a horizon rather than the obstacles or opponents before him. Free speech remains a horizonal ideal but one that is attainable for someone with unflagging commitment and creativity. This could be the ultimate “moon shot” for Musk to bring free speech back to the Internet.

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Think this was also banned from Twitter.

• 2000 Mules (AG)

After the 2020 election, government officials and their allies in the media repeated the mantra that the election was the “most secure in American history,” Dinesh D’Souza pointed out before the premiere of his new documentary film 2000 Mules at Mar-a-Lago, Wednesday night. But how would they know that? D’Souza wondered. Even if they couldn’t prove the election was rigged, “it still doesn’t follow that it was the most secure election in history,” he said. “The only way you could prove that would be if you were to compare the amount of fraud in 2020 with 2016, with 2012, with 2008, with 2004, and show that there has been less fraud now than in any of those elections.”

D’Souza’s question is a good one. Did election officials study the security of every election prior to 2020 to make the determination that the 2020 election was “the most secure ever”? Or were they just spinning another false narrative that benefits one side of the aisle? The movie 2000 Mules handily answers that question. Using state-of-the-art technology, the film convincingly makes the case that the 2020 presidential election was perhaps the most unsecure election ever, and was stolen from former President Trump.

The election intelligence organization True The Vote gathered geospatial and temporal data—amounting to a total of 10 trillion cell phone pings—between Oct. 1 and Nov. 6 in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The researchers looked at data surrounding ballot drop boxes in targeted areas, as well as UPS stores and select government, commercial, and non-governmental organization (NGO) facilities. This data, coupled with the surveillance video of the drop boxes, provide damning evidence of a coordinated illegal ballot trafficking operation across critical swing states. “Without free and fair elections, we are not a democracy, we are a criminal cartel masquerading as a democracy,” D’Souza argues in the movie.

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The vaccines still haven’t done enough harm, apparently.

• FDA Limits Use of Johnson and Johnson Vaccine Due to Blood Clots (CTH)

The FDA has limited the use of the Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine to only those over 18-years-old due to blood clotting issues. Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is now limited to adults due to the risk of a rare blood clotting syndrome. FDA – “Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has limited the authorized use of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine to individuals 18 years of age and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not accessible or clinically appropriate, and to individuals 18 years of age and older who elect to receive the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine because they would otherwise not receive a COVID-19 vaccine.” (read more)


WHAT CHANGED? – “The FDA and CDC have continuously monitored for and investigated all suspected cases of TTS reported to VAERS. In an updated analysis of TTS cases following administration of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine that were reported to VAERS through March 18, 2022, the FDA and CDC have identified 60 confirmed cases, including nine fatal cases. The FDA has determined that the reporting rate of TTS is 3.23 per million doses of vaccine administered and the reporting rate of TTS deaths is 0.48 per million doses of vaccine administered.”

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“..if every vaccinated pilot were to be screened, there would be somewhere around a 30 percent loss in manpower..”

• McCullough: 30% of US Pilots May Have COVID Jab-Induced Heart Conditions (ET)

Are we on the precipice of a major uptick in serious heart problems among otherwise young, healthy Americans due to the mass-disseminated mRNA COVID shots? Observations from several medical experts, including a well-known cardiologist, suggest that we are. Some individuals who appear to be facing worrisome jab-related heart problems are commercial airline pilots. Advocacy groups also say these pilots are being forced to keep mum about their health issues—and that a far greater percentage of them are likely suffering than the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would like to admit. Joshua Yoder is an airline pilot and co-founder of the U.S. Freedom Flyers (USFF), an advocacy group formed to help transportation industry employees maintain their medical autonomy and oppose federal vax statutes.

As noted by the website American Greatness, Yoder recently disclosed in an interview with Vaccine Safety Research Foundation founder Steve Kirsch that the USFF has already received hundreds of reports of pilots experiencing chest pain and other adverse side effects of COVID shots while flying planes. Of course, people experiencing chest pain caused by jab-related pericarditis or myocarditis (heart inflammation) is concerning enough. But to know that men and women are experiencing these issues while flying commercial aircrafts is deeply worrisome, Yoder says. Plus, many of these airline pilots are reluctant to speak out about their health problems because they fear losing their jobs. “I’m afraid if we keep going down this path,” he said in his interview with Kirsch, “at some point, it’s going to end in catastrophe.”

“If passengers actually knew what was going on at the airlines and the FAA,” he adds, “they would be livid, and everyone would be jumping on a class action suit against all of them.” In his interview, Yoder also shared what well-known Texan cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough said to him in a prior conversation: “if every vaccinated pilot were to be screened, there would be somewhere around a 30 percent loss in manpower” due to new jab-related cardiac issues.

Kolakusic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1522255323511369728

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Major US export.

• UN: Obesity Levels In Europe At ‘Epidemic Proportions’ (AP)

The World Health Organization says the rates of people who are obese and overweight in Europe have hit “epidemic proportions,” with nearly 60% of adults and a third of children in one of those categories. In a report issued Tuesday, the UN health agency’s European office said the prevalence of obesity among adults is higher across the continent than any other world region – except for the Americas. “Alarmingly, there have been consistent increases in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the WHO European region and no member state is on track to reach the target of halting the rise in obesity by 2025,” the report said. Among the countries it counts in its Europe region, WHO said the highest rates of obesity were seen in Turkey, Malta, Israel and Britain.

WHO said being overweight or obese is among the leading causes of death in the region and is responsible for more than 1 million deaths every year. Scientists have long warned that being heavy significantly increases the risk of numerous diseases, including respiratory conditions, diabetes and at least 13 cancers. It is also the leading risk factor for disability. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, we experienced the true impact of the obesity epidemic,” WHO Europe director Dr Hans Kluge wrote in the report. He noted that the obese were “more likely to experience severe outcomes of the Covid-19 disease spectrum, including intensive care unit admissions and death.”

Kluge also said that Covid-19 interventions like school closures and lockdowns often raised the risk of gaining weight when people turned to unhealthy diets and were forced to be sedentary. WHO called for countries to adopt policies to improve “environmental factors” linked to obesity, including taxing sugary drinks, restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children and efforts to improve physical activity In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 74% of Americans over age 20 are obese or overweight.

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There goes my faith in mankind…

• EU Officials Being Trained To Meditate To Help Fight Climate Crisis (G.)

Brussels officials are being trained to meditate to help them tackle the climate crisis as part of a new wave of “applied mindfulness” that seeks to take the Buddhism-inspired practice “off the cushion” and into hard politics. EU officials working on the 27-country bloc’s green deal climate policy are attending “inner green deal” courses intended to foster a deeper connection among decision-makers and negotiators tasked with tackling the crisis. The courses incorporate woodland walks near Brussels and meditation sessions, including one that invites participants to feel empathy for trees and animals to boost “environmental compassion”. Some managers have reportedly shown impatience at being asked to meditate and want to “get on with business”.


But early results from the first 80 participants suggest the course has strengthened officials’ motivation to tackle climate problems and overcome personal despair that little can be done. Mindfulness has boomed in the west in recent years through courses, meditation apps and books. But it has drawn criticism that it has become a “religion of the self”, with one critic warning of “McMindfulness”. However, it is recognised by the NHS as an effective treatment for recurrent depression when delivered as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Now advocates of “applied mindfulness” believe it could accelerate consensus-building between climate decision-makers. A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the need for “inner transitions” and the potential of meditation to encourage lower-carbon lifestyles.

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From the Attorney General for Virginia

 

Unparalleled disaster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 10 2021

Dec 102021
 
 December 10, 2021  Posted by at 9:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  65 Responses »


Today, two UK High Court judges will decide whether to extradite Julian Assange to the US.

 

• The Geographies of the Pharma Genocide (Toby Rogers)
• Scientists May Have Discovered Why COVID Hits Fat People Harder (ZH)
• SARS-CoV-2 Infects Human Adipose Tissue, Elicits Inflammatory Response (bioRxiv)
• South African Covid Cases Up 255% In A Week As Omicron Spreads (G.)
• NOW It Is Time (Denninger)
• UK Health Secretary Says ‘Unethical’ Mandatory Vaccination ‘Will Not Work’ (SN)
• Fauci: Definition of Fully Vaccinated Will Be Changed (ET)
• NIH: No Documents on Removal of Gain-of-Function Definition From Website (ET)
• Hillsdale College Opens New Academy for Science and Freedom
• Pfizer Centers To Boost Greek Economy (K.)
• ‘Nothing Is More Permanent Than A Temporary Government Program’ (DW)
• Botoxed Camels Banned From $66mn Beauty Pageant (RT)

 

 

Julian

 

 

Snowden on Assange: “What we are witnessing is a murder that passes without comment”

 

 

IVM

 

 

 

 

“If vaccines cause net harms, are being deployed worldwide, and every vaccine failure just leads to more vaccination, then this situation is best understood as a genocide.”

• The Geographies of the Pharma Genocide (Toby Rogers)

I’ve been searching for the perfect metaphor or analogy to describe what’s going on. But then I realized that while there are some similarities to prior historical periods, in many ways what’s happening now is unprecedented. So the task before us is to identify the features of this genocide, how it works, and how it’s similar to or different from the past — so that we can look for points of leverage to overthrow the system. First, some orienting principles to guide the conversation: The best available evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is a man-made gain-of-function chimera virus that escaped from a bioweapons lab. Both U.S. and Chinese bioweapons researchers are involved.

Coronavirus vaccines do not stop infection, transmission, or bad health outcomes including death. After nearly 500 million doses in the U.S., all-cause mortality and COVID-19 deaths have increased. Doubling down on vaccination, with three, four, or infinite doses or even reformulated doses will not stop the pandemic. This virus was always a bad candidate for a vaccine and mRNA and adenovirus vectors are no great breakthrough and no panacea. Pharma knows all of the above. The CIA, NSA, NIH, and senior Pentagon leadership do too. Useful idiots in government do not necessarily understand the above even though they are the ones carrying out the orders. Only a handful of elected officials understand this.

If vaccines cause net harms, are being deployed worldwide, and every vaccine failure just leads to more vaccination, then this situation is best understood as a genocide. Fauci, the FDA, CDC, NIH, and AMA are all blocking access to safe and effective treatments. This is a crime against humanity and clear evidence of genocidal intent. Pharma has taken over the media and political system and is implementing the most draconian anti-science policies since the Third Reich. Totalitarianism is Pharma’s preferred form of government and they are working extremely hard to create a global totalitarian system of governance under their control.

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The virus hides in fat cells?! Systemic inflammation I would venture.

• Scientists May Have Discovered Why COVID Hits Fat People Harder (ZH)

Now, scientists may have a clue as to why Covid affects fat people more severely – it infects both fat cells and certain immune cells within body fat, prompting the body to respond aggressively, according to the New York Times, citing a study published in October. “The bottom line is, ‘Oh my god, indeed, the virus can infect fat cells directly,'” said Dr. Philipp Scherer, a scientist who studies fat cells at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not involved in the research. “Whatever happens in fat doesn’t stay in fat,” he continued. “It affects neighboring tissues as well.” The research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, but it was posted online in October.


If the findings hold up, they may shed light not just on why patients with excess pounds are vulnerable to the virus, but also on why certain younger adults with no other risks become so ill. The study’s senior authors, Dr. Tracey McLaughlin and Dr. Catherine Blish of the Stanford University School of Medicine, suggested the evidence could point to new Covid treatments that target body fat. The finding is particularly relevant to the United States, which has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. Most American adults are overweight, and 42 percent have obesity. Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaska Native people in the U.S. have higher obesity rates than white adults and Asian Americans; they have also been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, with death rates roughly double those of white Americans.”-NY Times

“Maybe that’s the Achilles’ heel that the virus utilizes to evade our protective immune responses — by hiding in this place,” said Dr. Vishwa Deep Dixit, a professor of comparative medicine and immunology at Yale School of Medicine. According to Stanford’s Dr. Blish, “This could well be contributing to severe disease … We’re seeing the same inflammatory cytokines that I see in the blood of the really sick patients being produced in response to infection of those tissues.” As the Times notes, body fat is more than just an inert form of energy storage. On the contrary, fat is biologically active, and produces both hormones and immune-system proteins that affect nearby cells, causing a persistent low-grade inflammation regardless of any actual infection.

Inflammation is the body’s response to an invader, and sometimes it can be so vigorous that it is more harmful than the infection that triggered it. “The more fat mass, and in particular visceral fat mass, the worse your inflammatory response,” Dr. McLaughlin said, referring to the abdominal fat that surrounds internal organs. Fat tissue is composed mostly of fat cells, or adipocytes. It also contains pre-adipocytes, which mature into fat cells, and a variety of immune cells, including a type called adipose tissue macrophages. -NY Times As part of the study, Dr. McLaughlin, Blish and other colleagues experimented on fat obtained from bariatric surgery to see if the tissue would become infected with Covid. They found that yes, they could – but certain immune cells known as macrophages were also susceptible, and produced a ‘robust’ inflammatory response.

The team also analyzed fat cells from Europeans who had died of Covid, and found the disease contained within fat near various organs. According to Johns Hopkins professor of cardiology, Dr. David Kass, a man whose ideal weight is 170 lbs, yet who weighs 250 lbs, is carrying a substantial amount of fat in which the virus can ‘hang out’ – where it can then replicate and trigger a ‘destructive immune system response.’ “If you really are very obese, fat is the biggest single organ in your body,” said Kass, who added that Covid “can infect that tissue and actually reside there.” “Whether it hurts it, kills it or at best, it’s a place to amplify itself — it doesn’t matter. It becomes kind of a reservoir.”

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More obesity, more inflammation.

• SARS-CoV-2 Infects Human Adipose Tissue, Elicits Inflammatory Response (bioRxiv)

Obesity is associated with adverse COVID-19 outcomes, but the underlying mechanism is unknown. In this report, we demonstrate that human adipose tissue from multiple depots is permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection and that infection elicits an inflammatory response, including the secretion of known inflammatory mediators of severe COVID-19. We identify two cellular targets of SARS-CoV-2 infection in adipose tissue: mature adipocytes and adipose tissue macrophages. Adipose tissue macrophage infection is largely restricted to a highly inflammatory subpopulation of macrophages, present at baseline, that is further activated in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.


Preadipocytes, while not infected, adopt a proinflammatory phenotype. We further demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detectable in adipocytes in COVID-19 autopsy cases and is associated with an inflammatory infiltrate. Collectively, our findings indicate that adipose tissue supports SARS-CoV-2 infection and pathogenic inflammation and may explain the link between obesity and severe COVID-19.

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When the headline doesn’t match the content (let alone the graph). Triggers fear though. Job done.

• South African Covid Cases Up 255% In A Week As Omicron Spreads (G.)

Covid cases in South Africa have surged by 255% in the past seven days but there is mounting anecdotal evidence that infections with the Omicron variant are provoking milder symptoms than in previous waves. According to a South African private healthcare provider, the recent rise in infections – which includes the Omicron and Delta variants – has been accompanied by a much smaller increase in admissions to intensive care beds, echoing an earlier report from the country’s National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD). On Thursday, Marco Cavaleri, the head of biological threats to health and vaccines strategy at the European Medicines Agency, said the situation in Europe remained “extremely worrying”, primarily due to the spread of the Delta variant, while preliminary data on Omicron suggested it may be more transmissible than Delta but cases appeared to be mostly mild.

“However we need to gather more evidence to determine whether the spectrum of disease severity caused by Omicron is different to that of all the variants that have been circulating so far,” Cavaleri said. “Only time will tell.” He said it appeared that the currently approved Covid vaccines were considerably less effective in neutralising Omicron, but “we need to gather a more precise picture around the level of immunity that can be retained”. The World Health Organization said Africa currently accounted for 46% of reported Omicron cases globally. South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that despite the global concern over Omicron, it was still unclear whether it was more transmissible or caused more severe disease, and he criticised western countries for imposing a travel ban on the country.

South Africa’s biggest private healthcare provider, Netcare, said data from its facilities indicated less severe Covid symptoms in the current fourth wave than in previous waves. “Having personally seen many of our patients across our Gauteng hospitals, their symptoms are far milder than anything we experienced during the first three waves,” Netcare’s Richard Friedland told the Daily Maverick on Wednesday. “Approximately 90% of Covid-19 patients currently in our hospitals require no form of oxygen therapy and are considered incidental cases. If this trend continues, it would appear that, with a few exceptions of those requiring tertiary care, the fourth wave can be adequately treated at a primary care level.”

Friedland said that in previous waves 26% of Netcare’s Covid patients were treated in high care and intensive care units. Friedland’s comments echo earlier analysis from Dr Fareed Abdullah, of the South African Medical Research Council, who said many of the patients diagnosed with Covid in hospitals in badly hit Gauteng province and elsewhere were often “incidental” identifications in patients presenting with other conditions. “The main observation that we have made over the last two weeks is that the majority of patients in the Covid wards have not been oxygen dependent. Sars-CoV-2 has been an incidental finding in patients that were admitted to the hospital for another medical, surgical or obstetric reason,” Abdullah said.

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Sue your employer if you’ve been laid off under the OSHA mandate.

• NOW It Is Time (Denninger)

If you were bullied by your employer under the false pretense that the “mandates” from Biden’s administration were “required” and “lawful”, and your employer either went along with it voluntarily or actually led and lied, it is clear that they’re going to go up in smoke. The CMS/Health Care Worker mandate has been stopped, the OSHA mandate was enjoined and Biden’s attempt to move that to a more-friendly court in DC and get the injunction lifted was responded to by the Judges with a middle finger. Now the Federal Contractor Mandate has been enjoined as well. That’s all of the civilian mandates on employees. All of them have been enjoined. Three losses, no wins.

If you’re an employee who was either coerced into taking the jab or threatened with, or actually fired for refusing you should now contemplate going on offense, now and forevermore, against said employer. You were lied to by your boss who instead of standing up for you and joining said suits tried to sit with Biden and argue for that which has been ruled, with a very high degree of certainty, to be unlawful. I’m a former CEO. I understand these things. I would have never done what these goons did in the medical and other industry areas. No way, no how. There was never justification for it it in law, equity, or common sense. It was, from the start as I see it from the CEO’s side of the table, intentional, abusive and malicious. Well, such actions tend to draw lawsuits. They did.

And now the record is what it is: What was done has an EXTREMELY high probability of being ruled ILLEGAL in the fullness of time. You don’t get injunctions unless there is a very high probability of winning in the fullness of time. That means it is time for enforcement from your side of the table as an employee. It is time for lawsuits. It is time for retribution. It is time to do the minimum necessary work until and unless that retribution is handed to you and the account settled in your favor by said employer. If you were fired, you’re owed all your back pay plus all of any financial penalties you suffered plus immediate reinstatement plus no more bull****. At all. Period. If you were threatened with being fired an apology and reasonable compensation for the intentional emotional distress you were put under is owed you. If your employer doesn’t want to provide that then why would you give them anywhere near 100% ever again?

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Heretic.

• UK Health Secretary Says ‘Unethical’ Mandatory Vaccination ‘Will Not Work’ (SN)

The UK health secretary has stated that he has ‘no interest’ in legislating for mandatory COVID vaccinations, describing such a policy as ‘unethical’. In an interview with the BBC, Sajid Javid said “My view is that it’s unethical and also at a practical level it wouldn’t work.” Javid added, “If you’re asking me about universal mandatory vaccination, as some countries in Europe have said they will do, at a practical level I just don’t think it would work. Getting vaccinated has to be a positive choice.” In a separate Sky News interview, Javid added “I’ve got no interest in mandatory vaccinations, apart from in high-risk settings in the NHS and social care, which we’ve already set out that we will legislate for.”


The comments come a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there will “come a point” for a “national conversation” on mandatory vaccinations. Those reacting to Javid’s comments point out that for months Brits were told new lockdowns were not coming, then the government implemented them, and that vaccine passports would never be introduced, yet this week they were, as has been the plan all along.

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Every three months, which each booster.

• Fauci: Definition of Fully Vaccinated Will Be Changed (ET)

The definition of fully vaccinated in the United States will be changed, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday. “It’s going to be a matter of when, not if,” Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an appearance on CNN. The term fully vaccinated presently refers to a person who receives two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab. Fauci previously said the definition could be changed. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—which set the definition—has left open the possibility of changing it. The definition is used by authorities imposing vaccine mandates across the country, including the federal mandates against healthcare workers and government contractors.

Several of those mandates have been blocked in courts for now due to worries they’re illegal. Fauci said the timing of the change may be linked to the ongoing cases. “It has implications for that, and that’s the reason why it matters,” he said. Effectiveness of all three of the vaccines authorized for use in the United States drops the longer time goes on from a person getting one, according to real-world data and a slew of studies. There’s been “a slow but steady waning of immunity over time,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said last month. Walensky and other health authorities, citing the waning efficacy, recently cleared boosters for all adults 18 and older. Late last month, they recommended that virtually everybody in that population get an additional jab.

The drop in protection is even more pronounced against the newly identified Omicron variant, according to four studies released this week. Vaccine makers, including Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, are racing to develop reformulated shots that will target the variant specifically.

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Lots of definitions have changed over the past year. Is it because they were not true, or because they were not fit for purpose?

• NIH: No Documents on Removal of Gain-of-Function Definition From Website (ET)

No documents exist explaining why officials decided to remove the definition of “gain-of-function research” from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website, the agency told The Epoch Times. The NIH site used to include a 232-word definition of the research, but it was removed around the same time the agency disclosed that research it funded in China met the definition. The alteration took place sometime between Oct. 19 and Oct. 21. The Epoch Times submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for any communications and other documents from between Oct. 1 and Oct. 25 relating to the change, which had been authorized by the NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison.

The request was closed this week. The NIH told The Epoch Times that it “does not have documentation” on the change other than the updated page. The Department of Health and Human Services in 2017 published a document explaining how to deal with proposed research involving “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens,” or gain-of-function research. The document narrowed the definition to pathogens both highly transmissible and likely to cause significant sickness or death in humans. The page in question “had described the general definition of gain-of-function research that fell outside the scope of the HHS P3CO Framework,” an NIH spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email in October.

“However, that information was being misused/used incorrectly (and still is) and creating confusion (and still is),” she said, triggering the change. The NIH’s FOIA office sent a statement on the change that was nearly identical to the one from the spokeswoman. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, told The Epoch Times via email that the changed definition “has only muddied the waters.” “Part of understanding what happened in the Wuhan lab is understanding precisely what gain of function means, and NIH has not been helpful in this regard,” he wrote.

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Saw a bunch of comments telling these doctors they’re not really banned at all, they get so much media attention.

• Hillsdale College Opens New Academy for Science and Freedom

“What we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic was a silencing of scientific inquiry in favor of policies absolutely hostile to freedom,” said Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn. “Liberty is the common good that defines a free society. Policy and science should seek to preserve it whenever possible.” The Academy will feature the work of three scholars, who will be fellows at the Academy: Scott W. Atlas, M.D., of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University; and Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., of the Brownstone Institute.

“The pandemic exposed grave problems with the essential functioning of science, research and debate,” explained Atlas. “Instead of open and free discourse to seek the scientific truths underlying urgently needed solutions, we have seen silencing, censoring, and intimidation of those whose interpretations differed from the desired narrative. This dangerous trend interferes with our ability to address future crises and threatens the very principles of freedom and order essential to democracy.” Atlas added, “Our work in the Academy for Science and Freedom will expose these problems and explore solutions fundamental to the scientific process, principles that all free societies depend on.”

“Science depends on the freedom of scientists to challenge established dogma with arguments and data,” said Bhattacharya. “It cannot function when a small cartel of government scientists, who control a lion’s share of financial support for scientific activity even by private actors, can dictate scientific conclusions at odds with the facts as has happened during the pandemic. The work of the Academy for Science and Freedom will be to reform the funding and function of science so that scientists can be free to do science again and thereby contribute to the flourishing of a free society.”

Kuldorff warned that unless systemic problems within the scientific establishment are amended, the future results will be dire. “As we reflect on the worst public health fiasco in history, our pandemic response has unveiled serious issues with how science is administered. Since the pioneering work of Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes, the foundational principle of science has been the free and open discussion of a variety of scientific ideas. With silencing and censoring of scientists — on for example lockdown harms and natural immunity — we will see the end of 400 years of enlightenment.”

Read more …

Greece will not dump Pfizer I guess.

• Pfizer Centers To Boost Greek Economy (K.)

Drug giant Pfizer will contribute a total of 1.6 billion euros to the Greek economy in the decade up to 2030, a study by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) has shown. The activity of the US pharmaceutical giant in the local economy will directly and indirectly create 2,600 jobs in Athens and Thessaloniki, according to the report, titled “The Contribution of Pfizer in the Greek Economy,” presented this week at the 32nd Greek Annual Economic Summit, organized by the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce. The study has taken into account the direct impact the company will have on Greece’s gross domestic product, its indirect influence on the supply chain connected with the company’s activity, and the effects on consumption on the part of those receiving their income from Pfizer and suppliers associated with its activity. The IOBE study explained that Pfizer’s contribution to Greek GDP has almost doubled with the addition of the Center for Digital Innovation and of the Global Center for Business Operations and Services, both of which are based in Thessaloniki.

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Musk in politics?!

• ‘Nothing Is More Permanent Than A Temporary Government Program’ (DW)

In recent days, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has sharply criticized the Biden administration’s social welfare agenda. Earlier this week, Musk argued that the Senate should not pass the Build Back Better Act. The $1.75 trillion legislation — which the House of Representatives has already approved — would expand various social programs, including universal preschool, childcare subsidies, and climate change initiatives. “I would say can this bill, don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation,” argued Musk during The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit. “If this bill happens or doesn’t happen, we don’t think about it at all really. Honestly it might be better if the bill doesn’t pass.”

On Wednesday, the entrepreneur added to his remarks by sharing an analysis from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School — Musk’s alma mater — explaining that the national debt would increase by over 24% if the bill’s provisions are made permanent. “We evaluate the Act under two scenarios. In the first scenario, PWBM presents the spending and revenue provisions ‘as written’ in the legislative text where certain provisions sunset within the 10-year budget window. Under this scenario, we project that the long-run trajectory of public debt would be 1.5 percent larger and that GDP would be 0.2 percent lower in 2050 relative to baseline projections. Under the second scenario, we assume that temporary provisions of the proposal are extended permanently. We find that, against baseline projections, government debt would be more than 24 percent larger in 2050 and GDP would be about 3 percent lower in the same year.”

“There is a lot of accounting trickery in this bill that isn’t being disclosed to the public,” said Musk, noting that the $1.75 trillion price tag is deceptively low due to the early expiration of several programs. Musk concluded with a famous quote from economist Milton Friedman, which President Ronald Reagan often borrowed: “Nothing is more permanent than a ‘temporary’ government program.”

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Who can resist a headline like that?

• Botoxed Camels Banned From $66mn Beauty Pageant (RT)

Saudi Arabia has disqualified some 40 camels from its lucrative annual beauty contest for the animals on the grounds that they received Botox injections, facelifts, and other cosmetic touch-ups to become more attractive. Describing it as the biggest-ever crackdown on such “tampering and deception,” the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Wednesday that the animals were barred from the ‘Miss Camel’ pageant held during the popular King Abdulaziz Camel Festival. The event, which began earlier this month, invites breeders to compete for a $66 million prize. Noting that “specialized and advanced” technology was used to detect the artificially enhanced camels, the SPA warned that event organizers will “impose strict penalties on manipulators,” with the intention of halting “all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels.”


At this year’s event, held in the desert near the capital city Riyadh, authorities found that dozens of breeders had stretched out the lips and noses of their camels, used muscle-boosting hormones, injected their heads and lips with Botox to make them bigger, inflated body parts with rubber bands, and used face-relaxing fillers. Such artificial alterations are strictly prohibited at the contest, where judges pick the winner according to the shape of its head, neck, hump, dress, and posture. In recent years, organizers have reportedly used ultrasound scans and x-ray machines to confirm whether the animals have received cosmetic enhancements. According to The Telegraph, camels found to have been artificially enhanced are banned from the competition for two years and can even be added to a blacklist circulated by authorities. Their owners can also be fined up to 100,000 Saudi riyals ($26,650).

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Debt Rattle November 7 2021

Nov 072021
 
 November 7, 2021  Posted by at 9:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Sleeping peasants 1919

 

• US Appeals Court Blocks Biden’s Federal Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate (NYP)
• Federal Appeals Court Blocks Biden’s ‘Big-Company’ Vaxx-Mandate (ZH)
• Pfizer “Vaccine”: Kill 200 To ‘Save’ One? (OffG)
• How Long Does Vaccine Based Immunity Last? (SRMD)
• Pfizer Board Member Gottlieb: Pandemic Could Be Over In US By January (CNBC)
• Bootleggers, Baptists, and Vaccine Mandates (AIER)
• Scientific Journals Censor Science: Removal of Myocarditis report in VAERS (TSN)
• Feds Pay Zero Claims For COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries/Deaths (ZH)
• When Pandemics Collide: The Interplay Of Obesity And Covid-19 (PMC)
• Assange, Fiancee Sue Uk For ‘Preventing Them From Marrying In Prison’ (DM)

 

 

“Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate, the Mandate is hereby STAYED pending further action by this court.”

 

 

 

 

“Something very dark is going on.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1457002810063609859
https://twitter.com/i/status/1457032388232597505

 

 

Big win. Key line:

“Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate, the Mandate is hereby STAYED pending further action by this court.”

• US Appeals Court Blocks Biden’s Federal Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate (NYP)

A federal appeals court in Louisiana has blocked the Biden administration’s latest COVID-19 vaccination mandate, giving the government until Monday afternoon to submit a response. An emergency stay, issued Saturday from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, prevents the White House from requiring all full and part-time workers at private-sector companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated or get tested weekly and wear face masks. In its decision, the court cited “grave statutory and constitutional” concerns about the government’s mandate, which is scheduled to take effect on January 4. The mandate — issued Thursday under a new rule by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — would apply to some 84 million Americans.

It has been challenged in court by more than two dozen states, including Texas, Missouri and Louisiana. Employers who don’t comply could face fines of up to $14,000 per infraction, according to the government’s guidelines. “We will have our day in court to strike down Biden’s unconstitutional abuse of authority,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted after news of the stay was announced Saturday afternoon. A petition filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and representing 10 other states, declared the vaccine mandate is “unconstitutional, unlawful and unwise.” It also challenges OSHA authority, claiming the agency does not have the jurisdiction to implement the regulations.

“Its unlawful mandate will cause injuries and hardship to working families, inflict economic disruption and staffing shortages on the states and private employers,” reads the petition. In September, the president promised to impose a flurry of vaccine mandates after the Delta variant led to a spike in COVID-19 infections, ending what Biden called the “summer of freedom” from the deadly virus. “A distinct minority of Americans supported by a distinct minority of elected officials are keeping us from turning the corner,” Biden said in a White House address. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.” The government has until Monday at 5 pm to challenge the stay.

Read more …

Will need to read a number of reports to get the relevant details. Note: there will be as many appeals as cases brought.

• Federal Appeals Court Blocks Biden’s ‘Big-Company’ Vaxx-Mandate

A federal court has issued a temporary victory in a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccine mandate issuing a stay on the controversial federal government regulation in Texas. “Yesterday, I sued the Biden Admin over its unlawful OSHA vax mandate,” Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted Saturday. “WE WON. Just this morning, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues,” the 5th Circuit stayed the mandate. The fight is not over and I will never stop resisting this Admin’s unconstitutional overreach!” As Fox News reports, earlier in the week, Paxton sued the Biden administration over the mandate and argued that the move to force workers at companies with over 100 employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing is “flatly unconstitutional.”

“Biden’s new vaccine mandate on private businesses is a breathtaking abuse of power,” Paxton tweeted Friday. “OSHA has only limited power & specific responsibilities. This latest move goes way outside those bounds. This ‘standard’ is flatly unconstitutional. I’m asking the Court to strike it down.” The Wall Street Journal reports that the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit said it would quickly consider whether to issue an injunction against the vaccine and testing requirements, ordering the Biden administration to file initial legal papers by late Monday afternoon. A number of trade groups have issued warnings about the mandate, saying that it would exacerbate supply chain bottlenecks and staffing shortages nationwide. The White House remains confident the mandate will stand up to legal challenges.

“We are very confident that it can,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “As for the legal side of this, let me be crystal clear to avoid what appears to be possible misinformation or disinformation around the emergency temporary standard being a vaccine mandate. That would be on its face incorrect as has been explicit for months. It is a standard for safe workplace to either comply with weekly testing or to be vaccinated.”

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“It’s literally the worst NNTV in the history of vaccination.”

• Pfizer “Vaccine”: Kill 200 To ‘Save’ One? (OffG)

This is the absolute risk reduction for Pfizer/BioNtech (each group had over 18,000 people):
Injection Group: 8/18,198 = 0.04%
Placebo Group: 162/18,325 = 0.88%
Absolute risk reduction = 0.84%

From the “absolute risk reduction”, you can then calculate the “number needed to vaccinate” (NNTV). This is the rough number of people you need to inject in order to definitely prevent one case/death. To continue the example above, if your vaccine reduces the odds of infection from 10% to 1% (an ARR of 9%), you need to vaccinate eleven people to prevent one infection, giving you an NNTV of 11. Again, the NNTV of the Covid vaccines are much, much, MUCH higher than 11. Estimates range from between 88 and 700 to prevent a single case, and anything up to 100,000 to prevent one solitary death. And remember, all this data was for adults. Children are at a far lower risk from Covid – both in terms of hospitalisation and death. In the US, children aged 5-11 have a 99.992% chance of surviving “Covid” – so it naturally follows the NNTV for this group will be far, far higher than for adults.

But, now that the FDA has approved Pfizer’s “vaccine” for emergency use on children aged 5-11, “far, far higher” is not good enough. We need to calculate an actual figure for the “number needed to vaccinate” in order to hypothetically protect one child from dying “with Covid”. Fortunately for us, someone else has already done it. Writing on his Substack, economist Toby Rogers PhD has collated the numbers from Pfizer’s own trials, the FDA and the CDC and done a very thorough write up. You can read the whole thing here, we’ll just present you with some of the highlights: As of October 30, 2021, the CDC stated that 170 children ages 5 to 11 have died of COVID-19-related illness since the start of the pandemic. (That represents less than 0.1% of all coronavirus-related deaths nationwide even though children that age make up 8.7% of the U.S. population).

The Pfizer mRNA shot only “works” for about 6 months (it increases risk in the first month, provides moderate protection in months 2 through 4 and then effectiveness begins to wane, which is why all of the FDA modeling only used a 6 month time-frame). So any modeling would have to be based on vaccine effectiveness in connection with the 57 (170/3) children who might otherwise have died of COVID-related illness during a 6-month period.At best, the Pfizer mRNA shot might be 80% effective against hospitalizations and death. That number comes directly from the FDA modeling. I am bending over backwards to give Pfizer the benefit of considerable doubt because again, the Pfizer clinical trial showed NO reduction in hospitalizations or death in this age group.

So injecting all 28,384,878 children ages 5 to 11 with two doses of Pfizer (which is what the Biden administration wants to do) would save, at most, 45 lives (0.8 effectiveness x 57 fatalities that otherwise would have occurred during that time period = 45). So then the NNTV to prevent a single fatality in this age group is 630,775 (28,384,878 / 45). But it’s a two dose regimen so if one wants to calculate the NNTV per injection the number doubles to 1,261,550. It’s literally the worst NNTV in the history of vaccination. 630,000 children injected with 1.2 million doses to save one life. That’s incredibly inefficient. However, it could be even worse than that. As we covered last week, according to statistics cited at the VRBPAC meeting, only 94 children from the 5-11 age group have died. If this lower figure is correct, the NNTV to prevent a single death jumps up to 915,641.

In other words, in order to hypothetically prevent a single child from dying over a six month period, you would have to inject nearly one million children with almost two million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Read more …

We need solid research into this.

• How Long Does Vaccine Based Immunity Last? (SRMD)

It’s unfortunate that the drug companies decided to end their trials early, by giving active covid vaccine to the members of the placebo group after just a few months. It means that there is no long term follow-up of the covid vaccines from randomized trials, and there never will be. This means that we are instead forced to rely entirely on observational data as we try to understand how safe and effective the vaccines are over the longer term. That is why a recent study out of Sweden is so very interesting. It is currenly available as a pre-print and can be found here. The purpose of the study was to determine how effective the vaccines are at protecting against covid over the longer term (i.e. after more than a few months). This was a registry based study, so it’s not surprising that it is coming out of Sweden. Sweden is generally acknowledged as being better than any other country at collecting and sorting large quantities of population data and using it to produce these types of studies.

The authors of the study began by identifying all people residing in Sweden who had been fully vaccinated against covid-19 by late May 2021. At that time, three different vaccines were being used in Sweden: Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca. The vaccinated people were then matched individually against people of the same age and gender, and living in the same municipality, who hadn’t been vaccinated. In total, 1,684,958 individuals were included in the study. They were followed until October to see if they developed covid-19. So, what did the study show? As would be expected, the vaccines were very effective at preventing symptomatic covid around two months out from vaccination. This is what the randomized trials showed, and it’s the reason the vaccines were approved for use. Overall, the reduction in relative risk at 31-60 days out from vaccination was 89%.

However, after those first two months, there was a rapid decline in efficacy. At four to six months, the vaccines were only reducing the relative risk of infection by 48%! This is pretty interesting when we consider that governments had initially set the bar for approving the vaccines at a 50% relative risk reduction. So, if the trials had been required to run for six months before presenting results instead of only running for two months, then the vaccines would have been considered too ineffective to be worth bothering with, an would never have been approved. Well, that’s not quite true. One vaccine did still provide a better than 50% relative risk reduction at six months – the Moderna vaccine. At four to six months, the relative risk reduction with the Moderna vaccine was 71%. Pfizer was at the same time point only offering a 47% reduction in risk, and AstraZeneca was at that point not doing anything whatsoever to lower risk.

It makes sense that the Moderna vaccine would offer better protection than the Pfizer vaccine. Although the vaccines are virtually identical, the dose in the Moderna vaccine is three times higher. This is likely the reason why Moderna has been associated with much higher rates of myocarditis, which is why it is no longer approved for use in people under the age of 30 here in Sweden.

Read more …

But only if you consume our products.

• Pfizer Board Member Gottlieb: Pandemic Could Be Over In US By January (CNBC)

The Covid-19 pandemic could be over in the U.S. by the time President Joe Biden’s workplace vaccine mandates take effect in early January, Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday. The vaccine requirements from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration begin on Jan. 4 for any company with at least 100 employees. Some 84 million private sector workers must get either their second Moderna or Pfizer shot or one dose from Johnson & Johnson by that date or face regular testing for the virus. “These mandates that are going to be put in place by Jan. 4 really are coming on the tail end of this pandemic,” said Gottlieb, who’s also a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

“By Jan. 4, this pandemic may well be over, at least as it relates to the United States after we get through this delta wave of infection. And we’ll be in a more endemic phase of this virus.” All companies complying with OSHA’s new rules must also start enforcing indoor mask mandates for unvaccinated employees starting Dec. 5. Those personnel must also begin submitting weekly negative Covid tests after Jan. 4 to enter the workplace, and anyone who tests positive should quarantine. The federal mandate contains exemptions for religious and medical reasons. Employees who work exclusively outdoors, at home or in settings where others aren’t present are also exempt from the rules.

OSHA’s guidance doesn’t mandate that businesses pay for their employees’ Covid tests or masks, but any company caught dodging the rules could face fines of anywhere between $13,653 to $136,532 for intentional noncompliance. Gottlieb’s comments came in the wake of data from Pfizer that indicated its Covid antiviral pill, when paired with an HIV medication, slashed the potential for hospitalization or death by 89% in adults at risk for severe complications. Combining the pill with an HIV medication slowed the metabolism, allowing the Covid antiviral to work longer in the body. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in an interview Friday morning with “Squawk Box” before Gottlieb spoke that the company will submit data on the therapeutic to the FDA before Thanksgiving.

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“The Bootleggers supported the ban, too, but only because they would enjoy a thriving black market on those days and profit from illegal alcohol sales.”

• Bootleggers, Baptists, and Vaccine Mandates (AIER)

In 1983, economist Bruce Yandle developed the Bootleggers and Baptists framework to explain his belief that durable government action tends to come about with the support of two types of interest groups: those with moral interests and those with financial interests. Yandle appeals to early twentieth-century blue laws, which prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sundays. Baptists, the moralists, were motivated by their beliefs that Sundays should be respected as a day of prayer and rest, not drinking. The Bootleggers supported the ban, too, but only because they would enjoy a thriving black market on those days and profit from illegal alcohol sales. Durable government action, according to Yandle, tends to emerge with the support of coalitions that share a common goal even if they don’t share common motivations.

In a global pandemic, it has not been difficult to find a plethora of public health pieties. Nor has it been hard to find profiteers, especially pharma. I doubt that Anthony Fauci has any financial interests in the Moderna/NIAID vaccine — though investigators should look. He’s in it for the glory. Still, the Moderna/NIAID partnership puts the Bootleggers and Baptists on the same team. Fauci, President Biden, and all the MSM sentinels are the moralists in this equation, that is, if Prof. Yandle will permit a not-so-bright line between moralism and savior complex. They want to be known as the ones who beat the pandemic. One might even say Fauci has been planning for this his whole career. Now he graces us with his presence daily on SAHM programs such as The View, basking in the lamps, reminding us to wear our masks and get our vaccines.

The decrepit Biden, though he needs help getting up on that high horse, once bestride it, holds his mighty executive pen aloft and commands the multitudes to get the jab or else. Waiting in the wings are shadowy corporate figures, such as Moderna’s Bancel, prepared to execute these technocratic plans using billions of dollars inked in red. Though howls against Big Pharma were once prominent in the Progressive Playbook, those have mysteriously been redacted like Anthony Fauci’s FOIA’d emails. When one stops to think that these billions will have to be repaid by the very children who won’t have a choice but to get these vaccines, much less likely Covid, she might find the idea nauseous. A considerably more disturbing thought, though, is that Fauci probably suspected all along that NIH funding led to the creation and (accidental) release of a virus that has killed 5 million people as of this writing.

Anthony Fauci is a monopsony on funding for infectious disease research. He clearly does not want to be known as the guy in charge of funding the pandemic, even inadvertently. His defensiveness, his untruths before Congress, and his moth like draw to camera lights — all seem to reveal a man who, in his moralism, refuses to acknowledge that his agency had any hand in the damage Covid dealt. He wants to be America’s doctor, and his grand plan has always been to vaccinate the world. In his favored scenario, he would not be viewed not as a negligent bureaucrat but a savior. And he wants to keep it that way. The researchers? The intermediaries? The pharma execs? They’re in it for the money upon which their careers depend.

My hypothesis, therefore, tentative but bold, is that economist Bruce Yandle must have seen this coming a mile away. The vaccine mandates of 2020-2021 is a story of Bootleggers colluding with Baptists. The only question that remains, then, is whether we’re going to let them get away with it.

Read more …

Cancelling McCullough.

• Scientific Journals Censor Science: Removal of Myocarditis report in VAERS (TSN)

Dr Peter McCullough, MD, one of the most cited physicians in the world, an eminent practitioner of internal medicine, a cardiologist and epidemiologist, co-wrote a report with Dr Jessica Rose, Ph.D., a virologist and epidemiologist in Canada, called ‘A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products.’

Read more …

Paying means acknowledging damage. Look at the restrictions…

• Feds Pay Zero Claims For COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries/Deaths (ZH)

In fiscal year 2021, the U.S. government paid $246.9 million in claims for vaccine-related injuries and deaths. Not a single payout was related to Covid-19 vaccines. Each person with a “provable” injury from a Covid vaccine could claim up to $379,000 from a special Covid vaccine fund set up by the federal government. The payout for death could be as high as $370,376. However, according to an OpenTheBooks.com investigation, the federal government didn’t pay a penny for Covid-vaccine claims. The special fund for these claims is called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). There were only 1,357 claims filed that alleged “injuries/deaths from the Covid vaccines,” and 53 were listed as deaths, according to recent reporting by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

By contrast, the self-reporting Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) lists 16,310 deaths related to Covid vaccines. Of these, “5,326 of the deaths occurred on Day 0, 1,or 2 following vaccination[.]” The low number of applicants to the CICP fund for injuries or death from the Covid vaccine suggests that people don’t know the special fund exists. The “normal” vaccine fund, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), has existed since 1988 and provides compensation for injuries or deaths associated with most vaccines routinely administered in the United States (such as pediatric and seasonal influenza vaccines), according to the Congressional Research Service. Last year, this fund paid out $246.9 million in vaccine-related injuries and deaths. Payouts include $250,000 for a vaccine-caused death and $250,000 “for pain and suffering and emotional distress.”

A special vaccine court handles these claims. However, in the case of Covid-19 vaccines developed and approved under Project Warp Speed, deaths resulting from a Covid vaccine would pay out through the CICP and would pay more money than a vaccine-related death in normal times. Since the benefit for a death caused by a Covid-19 vaccine is $370,376 for fiscal year 2021 and $50,000 per year for lost employment income (with a lifetime cap to be “generally $379,000”). So, the death benefit is $120,376 higher than for other vaccines ($250,000). However, there is no equivalent to the VICP’s $250,000 “for pain and suffering and emotional distress” under the current Covid-19 parameters. Here are some other differences between the two vaccine-injury funds:

• No attorney fees. The Covid fund is not authorized to provide reimbursement for attorneys’ fees. Therefore, lawyers have less incentive to represent claims.
• Injured children receive small payouts. A Covid vaccine-injured child would only be reimbursed for “reasonable medical expenses.” Since the child survived and isn’t employed, there’s no other compensation.
• Narrow window to file a claim. The Covid fund allows a one-year window to file a claim whereas the regular vaccine fund has a three-year window.
• And sure enough, the CICP fund hasn’t paid out a dime in Covid-vaccine claims. HHS bluntly states online, “As of October 1, 2021, the CICP has not compensated any Covid-19 countermeasures claims.”

Read more …

A good bit on inflammation, something I find sorely lacking in most reports. There’s no way chronic and systemic inflammation is not a huge factor in Covid.

• When Pandemics Collide: The Interplay Of Obesity And Covid-19 (PMC)

Among 20,133 patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infection across 208 hospitals in the United Kingdom, obesity was identified in 10.5% [2]. Worse, obesity was a strong predictor of mortality (HR 1.33; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.19 to 1.49) after adjusting for other comorbidities. Between March 1 and April 8, 2020, 5279 patients at NYU Langone Health tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 [3]. Of these, 2741 (51.9%) required hospitalization, 990 (36.1%) developed critical illness requiring intensive care unit (ICU) services, and 665 (24.3%) died. In multi-variate analysis, obesity (especially a BMI>40 kg/m2) emerged as a risk factor for both hospital admission (OR 2.5; 95% CI:1.8 to 3.4) and critical illness requiring ICU services (OR 1.5; 1.0 to 2.2).


In another report from New York City, among 3615 individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, 775 (21%) had a BMI of 30 34 kg/m2 and 595 (16%) had a BMI of 35 kg/m2 or higher [4]. Among patients under 60 years old, those with a BMI of 30 34 kg/m2 were 2.0 (1.6 2.6) times as likely to be admitted to the hospital and 1.8 (1.2 2.7) times as likely to be admitted to the ICU, as compared to those with normal range BMI. In a cohort from Mexico of 51,633 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases and 5332 related deaths (10.3%), the obese, as compared to non-obese, had a higher rate of mortality (13.5% versus 9.4%), critical illness (5.0% versus 3.3%), and ventilator support (5.2% versus 3.3%) [5]. Data from France found a higher rate of obesity in those SARS-CoV-2 patients who were critically ill and required mechanical ventilation (Odds ratio of 7.36 [1.63 33.14] comparing BMI e”35 vs. <25) [6″ ].

These data highlight the devastating impact of one pandemic (obesity) on another (COVID-19). Obese individuals may have a compounded risk for acquiring more severe COVID-19 disease. First, individuals who are obese undergo gross structural and cellular level changes which puts them at greater risk for ischemic heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and respiratory disease, which are themselves risk-factors for acquiring COVID-19 disease. Second, obesity-specific structural changes can make caring for obese patients who acquire COVID-19 disease logistically challenging. Finally, there may be a link between obesity and SARS-CoV-2 specific receptors found in adipose tissue, possibly rendering obese individuals more susceptible to acquiring more severe disease.

Read more …

“The wedding stand-off began in May when Stella approached the prison chaplain to ask about arranging a ceremony. After an initial response, no further help was forthcoming. On October 7, Assange formally asked the Governor’s office to agree to a Belmarsh wedding, but he has had no reply.”

• Assange, Fiancee Sue Uk For ‘Preventing Them From Marrying In Prison’ (DM)

Julian Assange and his fiancee Stella Moris are bringing legal action against Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and the Governor of Belmarsh Prison, accusing them of preventing the couple from marrying behind bars. They fear the obstacles put in the way of their wedding by UK authorities are linked to a US-backed political war against the Wikileaks publisher and campaigner. In September it was revealed the CIA had drawn up plans to kidnap or kill Assange during his seven years exiled in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The agency also spied on his family and friends and led a campaign of misinformation against him. Stella, 38, a lawyer, said: ‘Those catch-or-kill plans were not implemented but other hostile measures were and this is the sting in the tail.

‘It’s part of an enormous conspiracy against Julian which makes itself felt in all that we try to do. ‘A wedding would be a moment of happiness, a bit of normality in insane circumstances. Julian needs things to hold on to because daily life is a struggle for him in Belmarsh and there is so much uncertainty about his future. ‘Our love for each other is the one thing which has carried us through and being married would be another bulwark in our emotional defences. ‘There is no reason for political interference in what is a basic human right. The CIA revelations show the lengths some agencies are willing to go to in their persecution of Julian.’ Assange, 50, and his fiancee have been engaged for five years, have two children and are both practising Catholics. They have been asking since May for help to arrange their wedding in Belmarsh.

[..] Stella is adamant their wedding ceremony would have no legal impact on extradition since his right to a family life in the UK is determined by the fact that their sons Gabriel, four, and Max, two, are British citizens. She also has rights of residency, having lived in Britain for 20 years, although she was born in South Africa. On Friday, the couple opened legal action paving the way for a judicial review. The case is brought against the Justice Secretary and Belmarsh Governor Jenny Louis. The wedding stand-off began in May when Stella approached the prison chaplain to ask about arranging a ceremony. After an initial response, no further help was forthcoming. On October 7, Assange formally asked the Governor’s office to agree to a Belmarsh wedding, but he has had no reply.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Any system you contrive without us will be brought down.”
— Leonard Cohen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1401284243733594119

 

 

The sights I have to look at every day.

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 14 2021

Jun 142021
 
 June 14, 2021  Posted by at 8:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  110 Responses »


Vittorio Matteo Corcos Sogni (Dreams) 1896

 

• 79% Of Democrats Support Employers Forcing Workers To Get Covid-19 Jabs (RT)
• ‘Pretty Safe’ Jab Will Protect Kids From Variant (ST)
• CDC Claims Covid-19 Kills ‘Healthy Young Children’ (JTN)
• The Killer in the Bloodstream: the “Spike Protein” (Whitney)
• UK Lockdown End To Be Delayed (Pol.eu)
• MP Warns Brits ‘Have To Learn To Live With Covid’ For ‘Rest Of Time’ (RT)
• Why Is Britain Now The Capital Of Long Covid? (T.)
• Wisconsin Top Court: Health Agency Lacks Power To Close Schools Over Covid (JTN)
• Too Fat To Fly: FAA Updates Guidelines As American Obesity Crisis Grows (Fed.)
• Biden Calls For Access To Wuhan Labs (RT)
• Biden-Putin: What’s On The Table (ZH)
• “Tesla Only Sold ~10%” Of Its Bitcoin Holdings: Musk Speaks, Bitcoin Moves (WS)

 

 

Look how young these inoculated kids are! 236 injuries and fatalities from vaccines in the 0-1 month old group!

 

 

Eric Clapton doesn’t agree

 

 

And that makes it alright?

• 79% Of Democrats Support Employers Forcing Workers To Get Covid-19 Jabs (RT)

A new poll shows that Democrats and Republicans are just about as divided on an employee’s right to choose whether to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as they are on a woman’s right to choose whether to abort her unborn child. Nearly 80% of Democrats agreed that employers should be able to force their workers to get Covid-19 shots, according to a CBS News-YouGov poll released on Sunday. In contrast, only 39% of Republicans approved of giving businesses such authority over their employees’ medical choices. The overall response was 56-44 in favor of forced jabs. Supporters of the two major parties are more split on vaccine choice than on Covid-19 inoculation in general. While 95% of Democrats have already been vaccinated or are at least considering it, 71% of Republicans are on board or thinking about taking the jab, the poll showed.

That result suggests some improvement in vaccine acceptance in the past two months. A Monmouth University poll released in mid-April indicated that 43% of Republicans don’t intend to get vaccinated against the virus. In the CBS News-YouGov survey, 29% of Republicans said they had ruled out the shots. Overall, only 18% of respondents said they won’t get vaccinated, while 71% said they had either already gotten a jab or planned to do so. The other 11% were undecided. The issue of employer-mandated vaccination is heating up, as a Texas judge on Saturday issued the nation’s first federal court ruling on whether workers can be ordered to receive Covid-19 shots.

Read more …

“Pretty” safe? Is that a slip of the tongue, or is it a warning?

• ‘Pretty Safe’ Jab Will Protect Kids From Variant (ST)

A scientist advising the government has declared that there is now a “very strong argument” to vaccinate children against the coronavirus as infections rise and evidence emerges that vaccination is “pretty safe”. Professor Peter Openshaw, vice-chairman of Nervtag, a committee that looks out for emerging respiratory threats, said there were indications that the Indian variant was more transmissible among children than the original Wuhan strain. Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It strengthens the argument for extending vaccination to children. I’ve been sitting on the fence on this one, but on balance I’m coming to the view that there’s a very strong argument we should go there.


“Evidence has come out about the safety and efficacy of generating an antibody response in children. It looks like it is pretty safe and there are no adverse signals.” Coronavirus testing in secondary schools has collapsed in recent weeks, according to NHS Test and Trace. Nearly two thirds of secondary school pupils failed to take a test in the week before half-term. Data from Public Health England shows 282 Covid-19 outbreaks in schools in the past four weeks, compared with 88 in the previous four weeks.

Read more …

“In reviewing the medical literature and news reports, and in talking to pediatricians across the country, I am not aware of a single healthy child in the U.S. who has died of COVID-19 to date..”

• CDC Claims Covid-19 Kills ‘Healthy Young Children’ (JTN)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now claims that “healthy young children” can die from COVID-19. Marty Makary wants to see the evidence. “In reviewing the medical literature and news reports, and in talking to pediatricians across the country, I am not aware of a single healthy child in the U.S. who has died of COVID-19 to date,” the Johns Hopkins University professor of medicine and public health said Thursday. Archived versions of the CDC’s web page comparing COVID-19 and seasonal influenza show that it revised the “differences” in the section “People at High-Risk for Severe Illness” sometime between May 31 and June 8.

“The risk of complications for healthy children is higher for flu compared to COVID-19,” the earlier version says. “However, infants and children with underlying medical conditions are at increased risk for both flu and COVID-19.” The new version flips the emphasis as well as adding a new claim. “Overall, COVID-19 seems to cause more serious illnesses in some people,” it begins. “For young children, especially children younger than 5 years old, the risk of serious complications is higher for flu compared with COVID-19. However, serious COVID-19 illness resulting in hospitalization and death can occur even in healthy young children.”

Makary’s article in MedPage Today, a clinical news publisher where he serves as editor in chief, pushes back on calls to vaccinate kids ages 0 to 12 without comorbidities. He also recommends parents avoid vaccinating children who have recovered from COVID-19 infections, continuing his argument that natural immunity is just as good if not better than vaccine immunity. “The case to vaccinate kids is there, but it’s not compelling right now,” Makary wrote. He’s part of a movement of doctors at medical institutions around the world calling for far more cost-benefit analysis of COVID-19 vaccines for low-risk populations such as children.

Read more …

“..the spike protein is deadly even absent the virus. ..”

• The Killer in the Bloodstream: the “Spike Protein” (Whitney)

The Spike Protein is a “uniquely dangerous” transmembrane fusion protein that is an integral part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. “The S protein plays a crucial role in penetrating host cells and initiating infection.” It also damages the cells in the lining of the blood vessel walls which leads to blood clots, bleeding, massive inflammation and death. To say that the spike protein is merely “dangerous”, is a vast understatement. It is a potentially-lethal pathogen that has already killed tens of thousands of people. So, why did the vaccine manufacturers settle on the spike protein as an antigen that would induce an immune response in the body? That’s the million-dollar question, after all, for all practical purposes, the spike protein is a poison. We know that now due to research that was conducted at the Salk Institute. Here’s a summary of what they found:

“Salk researchers and collaborators show how the protein damages cells, confirming COVID-19 as a primarily vascular disease…. SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system (aka–The circulatory system) on a cellular level… scientists studying other coronaviruses have long suspected that the spike protein contributed to damaging vascular endothelial cells, but this is the first time the process has been documented…. … the spike protein alone was enough to cause disease. Tissue samples showed inflammation in endothelial cells lining the pulmonary artery walls. The team then replicated this process in the lab, exposing healthy endothelial cells (which line arteries) to the spike protein. They showed that the spike protein damaged the cells by binding ACE2…“If you remove the replicating capabilities of the virus, it still has a major damaging effect on the vascular cells, simply by virtue of its ability to bind to this ACE2 receptor, the S protein receptor, now famous thanks to COVID.”

Remember how everyone laughed at Trump when he said injecting household bleach would cure Covid? How is this any different? It’s not different, and whatever modest protection the vaccines provide as far as immunity, it pales in comparison to the risks they pose to personal health and survival. And did you notice what the author said about stripping-out the virus and leaving the spike protein alone?’ He said “it still has a major damaging effect” implying ‘blood clots, bleeding and severe inflammation.’ In other words, the spike protein is deadly even absent the virus. Here’s how Dr. Byram Bridle (who is a viral immunologist and associate professor at University of Guelph, Ontario) summed it up:

“We made a big mistake. We didn’t realize it until now… We thought the spike protein was a great target antigen, we never knew the spike protein itself was a toxin and was a pathogenic protein. So, by vaccinating people we are inadvertently inoculating them with a toxin.” Think about that for a minute. This is a very big deal, in fact, this is the critical piece of the puzzle that has been missing for the last 15 months. Just as the respiratory virus concealed the real killing-agent in Covid, (the spike protein) so too, the relentless hype surrounding mass-vaccination has concealed the glaring problem with the vaccines themselves, which is, they generate a substance that is “capable of causing disease.”

Read more …

How bad will the backlash be?

• UK Lockdown End To Be Delayed (Pol.eu)

The U.K.’s final lifting of lockdown restrictions on June 21 is expected to be pushed back by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a press conference on Monday evening, a government official confirmed to London Playbook. Multiple outlets report that Johnson, alongside cabinet members Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock have signed off on a month-long delay, after scientific advisers urged the prime minister to allow enough time for more people to get fully vaccinated. On Friday, The Sun reported that July 19 would be proposed as the new “Freedom Day” of lockdown end, with a review of numbers on July 5 that could see some or all restrictions lifted early.

“The prime minister sees this as the final stretch and wants people to be patient. We are nearly there, it’s one last haul,” a government source told The Times. The rules currently in place that will be kept include the wearing of face masks and limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings. The reopening of nightclubs is also set to be delayed. On the other hand, according to the Financial Times, some allowances may be made for weddings, allowing for larger gatherings as is the case for funerals. Health minister Edward Argar told Sky News on Monday that weddings and those who plan to wed “will be very much in [Johnson’s] mind at the moment.”

Despite reports that Sunak is not planning to extend the furlough scheme to support businesses, Argar said Johnson is “very mindful of the need for businesses and others to get what they need if they continue to be locked down.” On Sunday, 7,490 new COVID cases were reported in the U.K., a considerable increase from 5,341 a week before, on June 6.

Read more …

“If our very effective vaccines cannot deliver us freedom from restrictions, then nothing ever will.”

• MP Warns Brits ‘Have To Learn To Live With Covid’ For ‘Rest Of Time’ (RT)

Covid Recovery Group chairman and MP Mark Harper opposes delays in the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, arguing Brits will “have to learn to live with” the virus now that the vulnerable are jabbed, or suffer constant lockdown. Harper took to Twitter after an article on Sunday in the Telegraph citing an unnamed minister claimed the planned lockdown-easing date of June 21 could be delayed until as late as next spring due to the government’s concern about the spread of Covid-19 variants. The Forest of Dean MP warned in response that it “would be devastating for business confidence, people’s livelihoods and wellbeing” if the reopening were delayed, and would send “a clear message to employers and workers that, when Covid cases increase this (and every) autumn and winter, they cannot rely on Govt to keep our society open.”


“Now that the most vulnerable have been protected with their vaccine doses, we have to learn to live with this virus, rather than endure seasonal on-off lockdowns and restrictions,” Harper argued, noting that Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance has warned that coronavirus mutations “will appear for the rest of time.” Harper also pointed out that the most vulnerable people in the UK – who account for 99% of Covid-19 deaths and 80% of hospitalisations – will all have been offered two vaccine jabs by June 21, making it safer than ever to reopen. “We have to learn to live with it,” concluded Harper. “If our very effective vaccines cannot deliver us freedom from restrictions, then nothing ever will.”

Read more …

“Many of these patients don’t really believe mental illness will explain their symptoms. They want something tangible, something external like the virus.”

• Why Is Britain Now The Capital Of Long Covid? (T.)

In April, the NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens promised to have 83 long Covid clinics open by the end of the month. The Office for National Statistics has estimated that more than 1 million people in Britain have suffered from long Covid. Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College, London, has predicted that long Covid could represent a long-term burden on the NHS comparable to arthritis, which costs the service an estimated £10 billion a year, some 8 per cent of the health budget. Altmann estimates that as many as 20 per cent of Covid sufferers could have longer symptoms; many of them will be younger patients who didn’t initially face severe illness.

It seems Britain is the long Covid capital of the world. This became immediately apparent to me upon moving back here from the US last month. American media has led much of the discussion on long Covid, but fear of the syndrome hasn’t penetrated public sentiment the way it has in Britain, where many young people are terrified of getting the virus not because they fear it will kill them, but because of the potentially debilitating after-effects. The question is why? Is there more long Covid here? And if so, for what reason? Are we simply doing a better job of diagnosing and discussing it, much as we lead the world in using genomic sequencing to find new Covid variants? Or might there be other cultural and societal factors underpinning our pervasive long Covid issue?

The answer could well be some combination of the above. The difficulty in researching long Covid is that every expert that you ask gives you a slightly different answer as to what the illness is and what causes it. “The simple answer is I don’t know [what causes this] and nor does anybody else,” says Dr Paul Harrison, head of Oxford University’s Translational Neurobiology Group. “We have to start with ‘nobody knows’ and keep that uncertainty — and therefore open-mindedness — at the forefront of our approach.” [..] “It’s psychosomatic,” says Jeremy Devine, a resident psychiatrist at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. In March, he wrote a controversial column for The Wall Street Journal, arguing that long Covid was being incorrectly used as a catch-all for a whole host of ailments and issues, many of them psychological. There was a fierce backlash, with several UK-based patient groups writing furious letters to his supervisors.

“People do not like psychological explanations for physical symptoms,” he says. “They want something that’s perceived as real. Many of these patients don’t really believe mental illness will explain their symptoms. They want something tangible, something external like the virus.”

Read more …

“What is reasonable and necessary cannot be reasonably read to encompass anything and everything.”

• Wisconsin Top Court: Health Agency Lacks Power To Close Schools Over Covid (JTN)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled against the city of Madison’s public health agency in a dispute over the power to close schools during the pandemic. A top city health official decried Friday’s decision, saying it would put children at risk. “The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that local health officers cannot close schools within their jurisdictions. We are extremely disappointed in the court’s decision, which has much further reaching implications than just this current pandemic,” health director Janel Heinrich said.. “This decision hinders the ability of local health officers in Wisconsin to prevent and contain public health threats for decades to come.”


The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty brought the case. WILL argued that Public Health Madison & Dane County overstepped its bounds by unilaterally ordering all schools, public and private, to close. WILL also argued the order infringed on parents’ rights to decide about their children’s education. Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote the majority opinion, saying Heinrich’s office had relied on an over-generalized reading of state law. “The power to take measures ‘reasonable and necessary’ cannot be reasonably read as an open-ended grant of authority,” Bradley wrote. “If Heinrich’s argument were correct, then the general provision would essentially afford local health officers any powers necessary to limit the spread of communicable diseases. This cannot be. What is reasonable and necessary cannot be reasonably read to encompass anything and everything.”

Read more …

One of the main causes of disease and death, also for Covid, and nothing is done about it whatsoever.

• Too Fat To Fly: FAA Updates Guidelines As American Obesity Crisis Grows (Fed.)

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is demanding U.S. airlines submit plans with updated weight averages they will use for passengers and baggage moving forward by Saturday. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Airlines officials say the weight estimates used for passengers and baggage are going up between 5 percent and 10 percent.” “That will affect some flights, possibly requiring that more passengers get bumped or more baggage left behind,” the Journal reported. The new guidelines, and likely travel disruptions to come with them, are yet another symptom of American weight gain with no signs of abatement.

While the novel coronavirus — a virus exacerbated by excessive weight where 78 percent of those hospitalized with infection were overweight or obese — should have served as a wake-up call to the decades-long obesity crisis, Americans instead packed on the pounds with apparently little concern. According to a global Ipsos poll in January, two in five Americans reported gaining weight throughout the lockdowns still in place at the time. Those surveyed said they put on an average of more than 14 pounds, putting the U.S. seventh out of 30 countries in terms of pandemic weight gain. Most Americans appeared relatively unbothered by the weight. Less than half said they believed there was a link between obesity and complications from COVID-19 which data determined early on was a major risk contributor.

“Since the pandemic began,” Science Magazine reported in September, “dozens of studies have reported that many of the sickest COVID-19 patients have been people with obesity.” Overweight patients in one study published in August cited by the flagship journal were 113 percent more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared to patients of an otherwise healthy weight. Obese patients were found 74 percent more likely to end up in intensive care units (ICU) and 48 percent more likely to die. Pre-pandemic, more than 70 percent of adults 20 years old and older were already overweight with 42 percent categorically “obese” according to the CDC.

Read more …

Never has rhetoric been more empty.

• Biden Calls For Access To Wuhan Labs (RT)

US President Joe Biden revealed on Sunday that he and other leaders in the G7 spoke about gaining access to the laboratories in Wuhan, China to determine whether Covid-19 was the result of a Chinese experiment gone wrong. During a press conference at the G7 conference in Cornwall, England on Sunday, Biden called on China to start acting “more responsibly in terms of international norms on human rights and transparency.” The president then revealed that one of the concerns he and other leaders at G7 had raised was that “we haven’t had access to the laboratories to determine whether or not” Covid-19 was the result of bats in Chinese marketplaces “interfacing with animals and the environment,” or “an experiment gone awry in a laboratory.”


“I have not reached a conclusion because our intelligence community is not certain yet,” Biden said, adding, however, that it was “important to know the answer” so the international community could predict and prevent another pandemic from happening in the future. “The world has to have access,” he argued, concluding that he and other leaders were trying to figure out a way to gain transparency. Former president Donald Trump has repeatedly argued that Covid-19 came from a Wuhan laboratory, and told podcast host Dan Bongino last month that he had “very, very little doubt” the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In a statement on Thursday, he demanded that China pay $10 trillion in “reparations” to the world for “what they allowed to happen.”

Read more …

Biden is outclassed 1000x. He comes with nothing.

• Biden-Putin: What’s On The Table (ZH)

There is a lot of optimism and big press regarding the upcoming meeting between Biden and Putin. This will be the first meeting of the two since Biden took that seat behind the lovely desk in the Oval Office. There are many issues on the table for discussion and there is tension and excitement in the political press in both the West and especially in Russia. There is a growing belief that this could be a turning point or at least provide some small nudging of relations in a positive direction. This wishful thinking, although pleasant from a moral standpoint, does not reflect the realities of the current divide between the United States and Russia. This meeting simply cannot provide some sort of new start for relations between the countries and will probably look like a head-nodding and pretending-to-listen fest the likes of which we have never seen before.

Hours worth of hot air will be blown to throw words onto deaf ears with some background posturing to boot. One reason for the Russians to be suspicious of any offers from Washington is simply recent precedent. Over ten years ago when Obama was still full of Hope and Change his feisty new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a great big smile presented Foreign Minister Lavrov the infamous Russian Reset Button. The red button had the word “overload” accidentally written on it in place of “reset”. This mistake due to a fake desire to make it seem like Washington cared enough to learn one word of Russian was very telling as during the brief era of the Russian Reset, America’s Soft Power machine was working day and night to organize the Maidan in Kiev.

From a Western perspective this revolution was another piece of evidence that the people of Eastern Europe want nothing to do with naughty Moscow, but from a Russian perspective the Maidan was the beginning of an endless waking nightmare. This all led to the genocidal war in the Donbass breaking out, the return of Neo-Nazism to Europe, and the now official systemic racism that Russian speakers have to endure in the “Zimbabwe of Europe”. After an experience like that, can one really expect any sort of optimism from the Russian side because Biden sort of stepped back a bit on the whole Nord-Stream 2 thing?

Read more …

“But Musk walks on water, and he can assert anything, no problem.”

• “Tesla Only Sold ~10%” Of Its Bitcoin Holdings: Musk Speaks, Bitcoin Moves (WS)

Why can’t this dude just shut up? That’s what people, including the SEC, want to know. But look, he just can’t. Apparently, no one can take his Twitter account away from Elon Musk, and Tesla isn’t putting it under adult supervision, as the SEC has suggested. So he was at it again today, responding to accusations by Magda Wierzycka, CEO of South African tech and financial services firm Sygnia, that he’d pumped up the price of Bitcoin by tweeting all manner of things, and then “sold a big part of his exposure at the peak.” So yes. Musk acknowledged in his tweet today that Tesla had in fact dumped part of its holdings of Bitcoin, but he argued that it wasn’t a big part, that it had “only sold ~10%” of its Bitcoin holdings.

And he came up with a rationalization why Tesla had dumped 10% of its Bitcoin holdings: “to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.” That was a joke apparently. Over the past two months, the price of Bitcoin plunged from about $64,800 to around $33,000 at the low and now hovers at $39,000, after the current Musk-induced spike, with the plunge leaving a big-fat question market over his assertion that Bitcoin could be “liquidated easily without moving market.” But Musk walks on water, and he can assert anything, no problem. The second part of Musk’s tweet contained an effort to pump up the price of BTC by walking back his assertion in May that Tesla would no longer allow customers to pay for vehicles with Bitcoin because of the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining, which was another one of his Bitcoin 180s.

At the time, that statement had whacked the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin mining is of course the fiat-currency equivalent of “money printing.” But money printing has a tiny carbon footprint, because it needs just enough electricity to move credits by computer and the internet. You don’t need huge arrays of special mining rigs with special power supply and cooling equipment to print money. So today he tried to walk back his carbon-foot print concern, by tweeting: “When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.”

Read more …

 

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Debt Rattle May 17 2021

May 172021
 
 May 17, 2021  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon 1890

 

• Second Stage Terror Wars (Edward Curtin)
• Fear Is the Mind-Killer (Alice)
• How To Cure Type 2 Diabetes – Without Medication (G.)
• Covid-19 Testing Turns To T Cells (Nature)
• Interview with Dr Bhakdi (Schultz)
• The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill (Wired)
• War of Words Over Inflation Stirs Questions for the Fed (Judy L. Shelton)
• Druckenmiller: “There’s Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed” (ZH)
• ‘$40 Billion’ Robinhood App Tries To Vault SEC Hurdles (NYP)
• Italian Port Workers Refuse To Load Arms Shipment Destined For Israel (NA)

 

 

“According to the scientific data…

Vaccinating 300,000 people under 18yo is statistically likely to prevent one COVID death and likely to cause 3 vaccine-reaction deaths.”

 

 

 

 

Testing? That’s so yesterday.

 

 

Must read.

• Second Stage Terror Wars (Edward Curtin)

It is well known that the endless US war on terror was overtly launched following the mass murders of September 11, 2001 and the linked anthrax attacks. The invasion of Afghanistan and the Patriot Act were immediately justified by those insider murders, and subsequently the wars against Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. So too the terrorizing of the American people with constant fear-mongering about imminent Islamic terrorist attacks from abroad that never came. It is less well known that the executive director of the U.S. cover story – the fictional 9/11 Commission Report – was Philip Zelikow, who controlled and shaped the report from start to finish.

It is even less well known that Zelikow, a professor at the University of Virginia, was closely associated with Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Dickey Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Brent Scowcroft, et al. and had served in various key intelligence positions in both the George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations. In 2011 President Obama named him to his President’s Intelligence Advisory Board as befits bi-partisan elite rule and coverup compensation across political parties. Perhaps it’s unknown or just forgotten that The Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission repeatedly called for Zelikow’s removal, claiming that his appointment made a farce of the claim that the Commission was independent. Zelikow said that for the Commission to consider alternative theories to the government’s claims about Osama bin Laden was akin to whacking moles.

This is the man, who at the request of his colleague Condoleezza Rice, became the primary author of (NSS 2002) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, that declared that the U.S. would no longer abide by international law but was adopting a policy of preemptive war, as declared by George W. Bush at West Point in June 2002. This was used as justification for the attack on Iraq in 2003 and was a rejection of the charter of the United Nations. So, based on Zelikow’s work creating a magic mountain of deception while disregarding so-called molehills, we have had twenty years of American terror wars around the world in which U.S. forces have murdered millions of innocent people. Wars that will be continuing for years to come despite rhetoric to the contrary. The rhetoric is simply propaganda to cover up the increasingly technological and space-based nature of these wars and the use of mercenaries and special forces.

Simultaneously, in a quasi-volte-face, the Biden administration has directed its resources inward toward domestic “terrorists”: that is, anyone who disagrees with its policies. This is especially aimed at those who question the COVID-19 story. Now Zelikow has been named to head a COVID Commission Planning Group based at the University of Virginia that is said to prepare the way for a National COVID Commission. The group is funded by the Schmidt Futures, the Skoll Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Stand Together, with more expected to join in.

Read more …

“This ideological mass psychosis is religion—not science.”

• Fear Is the Mind-Killer (Alice)

Can you imagine what master propagandist Edward Bernays would have done with access to today’s mainstream media conglomerate combined with the global surveillance infrastructure of Big Tech? And you really think that’s not happening now—with another century of psychological, neurological, and technological research under their belts? The present ability to curate reality and coerce obedience is unprecedented, far beyond what Orwell envisioned in 1984, Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, Huxley in Brave New World, and Burgess in A Clockwork Orange. A textbook example of Problem Reaction Solution, the current tsunami of worldwide hysteria is the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history.

The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining—despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative. Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic. Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.

Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases—especially ingroup bias, conformity bias, and authority bias—against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain. This ideological mass psychosis is religion—not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.

Read more …

With obesity such a major factor in Covid deaths, two birds with one stone.

• How To Cure Type 2 Diabetes – Without Medication (G.)

[..] Modest words for a man whose “useful contribution to society” has given hope to the 3.9m people diagnosed with the condition in the UK and who has shown doctors a new way to fight a disease which causes 185 amputations and 700 premature deaths every week. Now, he wants to go one step further and share everything he has learned directly with the public, in a new book, Your Simple Guide to Reversing Type 2 Diabetes. It’s a 153-page paperback that takes you through the latest research on how the disease develops and explains why rapid weight loss can be so effective at reversing the condition in the early stages – which usually means during the first six years of a diagnosis.

“If people really do want to make it happen, then in the first few years of diagnosis, it’s almost universal that their health can be returned to normal,” says Taylor, who is professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University. In one study, he found that nine out of 10 people with “early” type 2 diabetes were cured after losing more than 2 1/2 st (15kg). The book also explains who is at greatest risk and why some people who have a “normal” Body Mass Index (BMI) develop the disease, when many people who are more overweight – or even obese – do not. Taylor’s “Newcastle” weight loss programme is a clinically proven method of reversing early type 2 diabetes and his approach is currently being rolled out to people with the condition by the NHS. It involves cutting your calorie intake to 700-800 calories a day.

In the book, he explains how the people in his programme managed to do this – typically by consuming only slimming meal shakes and non-starchy vegetables, plus one cup of tea or coffee each day with skimmed milk – lost a life-changing amount of weight in just eight weeks. And how you can do the same, safely, at home. [..] One of Taylor’s most important new discoveries is that everyone has their own fat threshold: an individual level of tolerance for levels of fat in the body. “It’s a personal thing. It’s nothing to do with the sort of information that’s often provided about obesity, which is about average BMI and what the population is doing. The bottom line is, a person will develop type 2 diabetes when they’ve become too heavy for their own body. It doesn’t matter if their BMI is within the ‘normal’ range. They’ve crossed their personal threshold and become unhealthy.”

He is currently in the middle of research to find out whether there’s any way of discovering, via a blood test, when people are heading into this dangerous territory and their fat cells are putting out what he describes as “distress signals”. What we do know already is that our bodies start to have trouble controlling blood sugar when fat can no longer be stored safely under the skin and it spills over into the liver and then the pancreas. If these organs get clogged with fat, they stop functioning properly and that is when you develop type 2 diabetes.

Read more …

Does this address only vaccine-related T cells?

• Covid-19 Testing Turns To T Cells (Nature)

A diagnostic test based on sequencing long-lived SARS-CoV-2–specific memory T cells provides a complement to antibody testing for determining previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Following last month’s US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization for Adaptive Biotechnologies’ T-Detect COVID-19 test, routine T-cell testing has entered a new era. The Adaptive test involves laboratory-based next-generation sequencing to identify T cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2 antigens. The test is not intended for the diagnosis of active infection but is a complement to antibody tests used to confirm recent or previous infections. The lab-based procedure, which has a seven- to ten-day turnaround time, is now authorized for use on samples taken from individuals at least 15 days after the onset of symptoms.

Increasing interest is focused on the role of T-cell immunity in fighting SARS-CoV-2 infection and in providing resistance to re-infection. A new analysis of T cells from people who recovered from COVID-19 has confirmed that they remain active against three of the new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: B1.1.7, B.351 and B.1.1.248. The study, conducted by a team from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Singapore-based biotech company ImmunoScape, will further boost confidence that the efficacy of vaccines developed against the original pandemic strain will not be overly compromised as these new variants—and others—spread more widely.

Until now, researchers have mostly relied on the use of lateral flow assay or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to determine whether a person has been exposed to the virus. Understanding the neutralizing antibody response has been considered central to establishing protection against the virus. “It’s easy to test,” says Andrew Redd of NIAID, who led the recent study. Although critical, antibodies are part of a larger and incompletely understood set of humoral and cellular immune responses, which has received little attention. These include additional antibody functions, such as antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, complement activation and phagocyte recruitment. Unravelling their contribution to SARS-CoV-2 immunity is an ongoing challenge. “There are assays to do that, it’s just complicated to do,” says Redd.

The same can be said for assaying T-cell-mediated immunity. The NIAID study relied on a complex laboratory test to identify T-cell epitopes specific to SARS-CoV-2, employing a combination of mass cytometry and combinatorial staining of peptide–major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-bound tetramers. The complexity of the assay and data generated necessarily confine the assay to use in specialist laboratories. “The data that it generates are massive. The analysis side of it is a big lift,” Redd says.

Read more …

You tell me what you think of the man.

• Interview with Dr Bhakdi (Schultz)

According to the UK Government’s figures, more than 1,100 people have died due to an adverse effect caused by one of the vaccines currently being rolled out via Emergency Use Authorisation. But Dr Bhakdi reveals that worse is yet to come, with manufacturers, he says, creating a false sense of security. “It’s so easy to manipulate the nano-particles,” he said. “All you need to do is take out one component, one lipid, and the vaccine will not be taken up by the cells any more. And then you have no side-effects. And you will have a vaccine that is well-tolerated. “That is what’s happening now with the mRNA vaccines, so the AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Sputnik will be removed from the market. So there will be a monopoly of the mRNA vaccines, which are being backed by Bill Gates.

“This plan was conceived years ago. Once this vaccine gets legally, fully approved, not approved for emergency use, but fully approved, no more risk analysis needs to be done. “Pfizer are going to submit an application for this in June. And the authorities have already released underground information that the approval will probably be given in October. When this happens, it means that every subsequent vaccine is automatically approved. They have to sign no more application, there will be no more trials, no more risk-benefit analysis. No more notification of side effects. “It’s such a nightmare. They can say, ‘well the care homes are overcrowded. India and South Africa…

“You know that with each subsequent vaccine the chances rise that you are going to kill people. That’s why they are starting to vaccinate children – they are going to show that the vaccine is tolerated by children – then they are going to use this wherever they want to. “Once that has come through, these guys have a free hand to do whatever they want, wherever they want. And no one can do anything about it. It’s so horrible. “How can people be so evil? How can people be so ignorant? It’s that combination of evil and ignorance that is making the world a living hell. And the only people who can do anything about it is us because we have to get the world around us to stand up and realise that they are being led to a living hell.

“It’s a devilish plan, satanic. But the very, very small chance we have is that they made a mistake, which was they thought that this vaccination programme would go through smoothly, as they were not aware that the adverse effects would be so severe and so widespread. “This is where they may trip if we can force them to turn back on the vaccination programme. Now there have been legal charges brought against the EU, for nullification against all the vaccines.”

Read more …

“Trapped in their group-specific jargon, the two camps on Zoom literally couldn’t understand one another.”

• The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill (Wired)

Early one morning, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19, and other expert advisers to the WHO. It was just past 1 pm Geneva time on April 3, 2020, but in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Marr lives with her husband and two children, dawn was just beginning to break.

Marr is an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech and one of the few in the world who also studies infectious diseases. To her, the new coronavirus looked as if it could hang in the air, infecting anyone who breathed in enough of it. For people indoors, that posed a considerable risk. But the WHO didn’t seem to have caught on. Just days before, the organization had tweeted “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne.” That’s why Marr was skipping her usual morning workout to join 35 other aerosol scientists. They were trying to warn the WHO it was making a big mistake.

Over Zoom, they laid out the case. They ticked through a growing list of superspreading events in restaurants, call centers, cruise ships, and a choir rehearsal, instances where people got sick even when they were across the room from a contagious person. The incidents contradicted the WHO’s main safety guidelines of keeping 3 to 6 feet of distance between people and frequent handwashing. If SARS-CoV-2 traveled only in large droplets that immediately fell to the ground, as the WHO was saying, then wouldn’t the distancing and the handwashing have prevented such outbreaks? Infectious air was the more likely culprit, they argued. But the WHO’s experts appeared to be unmoved. If they were going to call Covid-19 airborne, they wanted more direct evidence—proof, which could take months to gather, that the virus was abundant in the air. Meanwhile, thousands of people were falling ill every day.

On the video call, tensions rose. At one point, Lidia Morawska, a revered atmospheric physicist who had arranged the meeting, tried to explain how far infectious particles of different sizes could potentially travel. One of the WHO experts abruptly cut her off, telling her she was wrong, Marr recalls. His rudeness shocked her. “You just don’t argue with Lidia about physics,” she says.

Morawska had spent more than two decades advising a different branch of the WHO on the impacts of air pollution. When it came to flecks of soot and ash belched out by smokestacks and tailpipes, the organization readily accepted the physics she was describing—that particles of many sizes can hang aloft, travel far, and be inhaled. Now, though, the WHO’s advisers seemed to be saying those same laws didn’t apply to virus-laced respiratory particles. To them, the word airborne only applied to particles smaller than 5 microns. Trapped in their group-specific jargon, the two camps on Zoom literally couldn’t understand one another.

Read more …

Trump nominated her to the Fed. Her nomination stalled on November 17, 2020, with a 47–50 vote in the Senate.

• War of Words Over Inflation Stirs Questions for the Fed (Judy L. Shelton)

Does it make sense, for a nation founded on the notion of individual liberty, equality under the law, and personal property rights, to allow a government agency to manipulate the value of the currency used by its citizens? Would it be better to have a stable monetary foundation to facilitate free-market outcomes, rather than empower the Federal Reserve to distort interest rates and dilute dollars in the service of government policy? It’s not as if we haven’t been here before. The question of whether rules-based monetary stability historically delivers better economic results in terms of increasing middle-class incomes than relying on the discretionary judgment of central bankers has been wholly analyzed and resolved.

In the 2015 Economic Report of the President issued under the Obama administration, a special section describes the period from 1948 to 1973 as the “Age of Shared Growth”—characterized by accelerating labor productivity, falling income inequality, and increased workforce participation. The report makes little mention of the fact that this period of remarkable growth, which increased living standards across all income levels, coincided with the existence of the Bretton Woods international monetary system under which the U.S. dollar was convertible into gold at a fixed price. The report does posit that if post-1973 productivity growth had continued at its pace from those previous 25 years, “incomes would have been 58% higher in 2013” and “the median household would have had an additional $30,000 in income.”

All of which should give pause to those who belittle the uneasiness felt by conservatives who fear that compromising monetary integrity not only violates founding principles but also economic rationality. And it’s not just conservatives per se, but rather an increasingly larger segment of the population expressing concerns about the wisdom of government officials and the correctness of government policies.

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Well, that’s what it’s for.

• Druckenmiller: “There’s Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed” (ZH)

After his status-quo-shattering appearance on CNBC this week, during which he warned that “Fed policy is endangering the dollar’s reserve status,” billionaire fund manager Stan Druckenmiller spoke to The USC Marshall Center for Investment Studies’ Student Investment Fund Annual Meeting via Zoom, and shocked the on-lookers with his frank assessment of our current perceptions and realities. After The Bank of Canada sheepishly admitted this week that “some of the monetary policy tools it is using to address the COVID-19 pandemic, such as quantitative easing (QE), could widen wealth inequality,” Druckenmiller drops the proverbial hammer on all the hedged-speak (“could”), and blasts that

“I don’t think there has been a greater engine of inequality than the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States… so hearing the Chairman [Powell] talking about visiting homeless shelters is very rich indeed…” The outspoken fund manager went on to note that “everyone wealthy that I know is making fortunes” because “this guy [Powell] is printing money like there’s no tomorrow” adding that the kids is Harlem are not benefitting from money-printing but wealthy people are, exclaiming that “…for the life of me I can’t understand why the left is so excited about money-printing when all the data shows that the people who benefit from money-printing are rich people.”

“The odds-on bet is that we’re going to have inflation,” he continues: “and inflation is going to hurt poor people, again, a lot more than rich people.” How does this all end? “The asset bubble which [Powell] is blowing up into unbelievable proportions busts before the inflation ever really manifests itself, that’s what happened in the housing bubble in 08/09. We never really got to the inflation because the asset bubble burst… not dis-similar to what happened in 1929.” And Druck reminds us all, “there is no one, no group, that will be hurt more by a bust than the poor… they will be first in line to get screwed.”

Read more …

Gasparino.

• ‘$40 Billion’ Robinhood App Tries To Vault SEC Hurdles (NYP)

It’s a lot of money for a stock-trading app that’s supposedly free. Robinhood is slated to launch an initial public offering before summer’s end that could value the Silicon Valley-based company at $40 billion or more, people close to the underwriting group say. That would make it among the biggest deals of the year – and certainly the most anticipated as the day-trading app became a cultural phenom during the pandemic. A blowout IPO would be remarkable for a company created only in 2013 and which has survived its share of controversies. Last summer, I warned that Robinhood was luring in amateurs stuck at home during the COVID lockdowns who took on day trading as a sport. They would eventually lose their shirts trading stocks on its free and easy-to-use platform, and regulators would pounce.

The party, I predicted, wouldn’t end well and it almost didn’t. Amateur traders are the lifeblood of Robinhood and its user growth, and they lost lots of money on the wrong side of bets. Then came January’s meme – stock controversy, where clearing problems stymied trading of some high-volume stocks on the app, angering customers. The company s business model came under scrutiny. Congress held hearings about the episode following the wild swings in various stocks that traded over the platform, and the IPO that was planned for March was pushed off indefinitely. But for all the noise, the clients just kept coming – and the IPO is back on. The reason is simple, company execs tell me: Robinhood is printing money. Despite the hiccups, Robinhood added some 6 million additional new customers for its crypto platform alone in the first two months of the year.

Now the app’s explosive user growth has investors clamoring for a piece of the action, people close to the deal say. And mind you, underwriters and company officials are quietly calculating their $40 billion valuation for a product that founder Vlad Tenev essentially conjured up in his dorm room.

Read more …

While the US still blocks a UN ceasefire resolution.

• Italian Port Workers Refuse To Load Arms Shipment Destined For Israel (NA)

A syndicate of port workers in the Italian city of Livorno in Tuscany on Friday protested a weapons and explosives shipment after discovering it was destined for the Israeli port of Ashdod. “The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people,” said L’Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). The USB added that the ship contained “weapons and explosives that will serve to kill the Palestinian population, already hit by a severe attack this very night, which caused hundreds of civilian victims, including many children”. A report by The Weapon Watch, a Genoa-based NGO that monitors arms shipments in European and Meditteranean ports, informed the syndicate of the destination of the ship and its contents. The NGO urged the Italian government to consider whether it was “suspending some or all Italian military exports to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict areas.”


“The Union on Saturday will also be in the square in Livorno in solidarity with the Palestinian population and to ask for an immediate stop to the bombings on Gaza and a stop to the ‘expropriations’ Palestinian homes that have lived under military occupation for years,” the USB said in a statement. Although the shipment eventually embarked its journey to Naples, as most other port workers continued to load the ship, other Italian workers’ groups have called for increased coordination between port workers to prevent shipment of weapons that could be used to bomb Gaza. Protests took place in various Italian cities this week, following Israeli forces’ attacks against Palestinians in Jerusalem and its escalation on the blockaded Palestinian Gaza Strip.

Read more …

 

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Debt Rattle May 2 2021

May 022021
 
 May 2, 2021  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Triumph of Death c1562

 

• People In England Urged To Be Patient; Hugging May Soon Be Allowed (G.)
• 12 Million Possible Adverse Events After Vaccination in UK, Europe, US (BOOM)
• Its Your Fear, Nobody Elses (Denninger)
• Pfizer Developing Pill To Treat Covid-19, May Hit Market By End Of 2021 (RT)
• The Biggest Vaccine Deal in History: EU to Scoop 1.8 Billion Pfizer Shots (GR)
• Obesity Increases Risk Of Severe Covid-19, Particularly In Young People (RT)
• Ike’s 1950s America Beat The ‘Asian Flu’ With Science & Common Sense (NF)
• Covid Lockdowns Cost Countless Jobs, Don’t Appear To Have Saved Lives (NYP)
• Florida To Impose Hefty Fines On Tech Giants That Deplatform Politicians (RT)
• Twitter Censors Accounts To Spoon-Feed The World Establishment Narratives (RT)
• Victoria Nuland Is Now Highest-Ranking Member of US Foreign Service
• US Interferes in Mexico’s Phaseout of Glyphosate and GMO Corn (CD)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything that’s wrong in the world today in one headline. If a government pretends it can “allow” hugging, or not, fire it.

• People In England Urged To Be Patient; Hugging May Soon Be Allowed (G.)

People are being urged to remain patient before the next relaxation of Covid lockdown restrictions as there is still a possibility for coronavirus cases to “reignite”, amid reports that family and friends in England could be allowed to hug in just over a fortnight. The success of the vaccine rollout and sharp reduction in coronavirus cases and deaths has led ministers to support the move, according to the Times. If approved, this would mark the first time that people in England have been allowed to have physical contact outside of their household or bubble for more than a year. The government had said it would keep hugging under review as England approaches the third stage of the roadmap out of lockdown on 17 May. It has not yet made a formal announcement on the decision.


However, the former chief scientific adviser Sir Mark Walport warned that “the virus has not gone away” because many UK adults have still not had their first vaccine jab. “We are on the cusp of being able to move to the next step of relaxation; it’s absolutely right that vaccines have been spectacularly successful but not everybody is protected,” Walport, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We’ve got 35% of adults who are not vaccinated and 60% who have only had one dose and the truth is the virus has not gone away.” “The mistake that has been made repeatedly, really, is relaxing just slightly too early. What we need to do is get the numbers right down. It’s important that we don’t act as an incubator for variant cases that might be able to resist immunity.”

Read more …

Extrapolation.

• 12 Million Possible Adverse Events After Vaccination in UK, Europe, US (BOOM)

Total Adverse Events reported in the US now number 118,800

Total Adverse Events Reported in the UK now number 725,079

Total Adverse Events Reported in Europe now number 354,177

Total Adverse Events Reported in those three regions = 1,198,056

It is clear that the UK reported numbers of adverse events is far greater proportional to population than those reported in the US and in Europe. If we assume that the UK numbers are, in fact, more accurate as a representation of reported events on a population basis and then extrapolate from those UK rates, then we can guess at the total numbers that may be mis-reported in the US and in Europe. UK Population is 68 Million. Thus the Adverse Events per Million population there is 10,662. BOOM advises readers to sit down now to avoid shock. Such extrapolations reveal a (theoretically possible) Total Adverse Events number to date of almost 8 Million in Europe (where the population is estimated at 741 million) and 3.5 Million in the United States (population 332 million).

This generates a theoretically possible total of over 12 MILLION adverse events in the UK, Europe and the US combined to date. And this is after only 4 – 5 months of so-called “vaccination rollouts”. The Total Adverse Events worldwide may be greater than 20 MILLION already using the same theoretical methodology. Total Deaths worldwide may be of the order 20,000 already (or more). It is estimated that 90% of adverse events are not officially reported. Thus, those numbers may be TEN times higher in reality. The theoretical number of 200 million possible adverse events including deaths is staggering in such a short time frame. Approval for these pharmaceutical products by the US FDA is for emergency use only. The clinical trials conducted in late 2020 were conducted over just a few months.

Thus, they arguably have the status of an experimental vaccine with long term side effect rates unknown. The Nuremberg Code requires an individual’s informed consent before receiving experimental medical interventions. And that principle is in the 1964 Helsinki Declaration, which has been codified at Federal and State level in the USA. Australia has also ratified this declaration as have many other nations. The Declaration of Helsinki is an international document that influences how research is conducted in all countries. The Declaration of Helsinki was born from the history of abuses of human research subjects. Informed consent is one of the hallmarks of ethical research and ensures that individuals can make decisions that are in their best interests. Are people being adequately informed?

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Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine

“..what none of them care about is relative and absolute risk of both Covid-19 and the shots yet you have to be insane to accept a risk from a shot that is greater than the risk from the disease itself.”

• Its Your Fear, Nobody Elses (Denninger)

We knew in March of last year that not everyone was susceptible to severe disease and death. We knew it because a cruise ship full of old, fat, morbid people, of which nearly every cruise ship is on a wildly over-represented basis didn’t have everyone on board drop like flies. Yes, some people got sick and a few died. But nowhere near everyone got sick, and even fewer died. Indeed, only about one in five got sick. We didn’t know why everyone wasn’t susceptible to clinical disease or worse but we knew this factually in March of 2020 yet Fauci, the CDC and indeed many other so-called “experts” intentionally lied and called this a “novel virus” to which everyone was at severe risk of serious disease and death. Nope.

Now we know why; 81% of the population of the planet has cross-immunity which is at least partially protective. None of these “advocates” and so-called “experts” care about how we got that immunity and in fact they deny it exists despite hard, scientific proof. It’s why every single one of us is alive and why we’ve all survived thus far both individually and as a species. Adaptive cross-immunity only comes from your immune system fighting off some infection. We all have done it since we were infants; indeed, the reason breast milk is a superior means of feeding a baby is that the mother passes to her infant a wildly-effective and supercharged bolster of antibodies, a “primer” if you will, in the first feedings which are called “colostrum.” It’s so important that we’ve documented over the years that children fed from the breast are wildly less-likely to get sick, including diseases that can be and sometimes are fatal to said children.

Do these “advocates and experts” propose that we jail, shun, bar from employment or even jail any woman who refuses to feed her child from the breast, or who fails to put in sufficient effort to do so if she finds it difficult or simply inconvenient? Or do we consider it a valid personal choice to reach for the Similac? These people point out that the shots claim to be 90% effective and it sucks if you’re in the 10%. Well, true enough. But what none of them care about is relative and absolute risk of both Covid-19 and the shots yet you have to be insane to accept a risk from a shot that is greater than the risk from the disease itself. That is, VAERS says there are 3,607 deaths associated with these vaccines over four months time, while the next-largest set is for the HIBV vaccine with 1,363.

But the HIB vaccine has been given routinely to children since 1987, a period of 34 years, meaning that said 1,363 associated deaths come to just 40 annually and it is the most-dangerous “next in line”; all others are less so! Note that HIB, prior to vaccination, was approximately three to five times as deadly as Covid-19 generally, killing between 3-6% of all who got it and virtually everyone who got it and died of it was a young child with decades of life ahead of them, not someone in a nursing home where the average life expectancy at admission is six months. Yes, it sucks if you die in a nursing home of Covid-19 but this does not change the fact that 53% of the time if you’re admitted to a nursing home you’re dead of something within the next six months. Dead is dead when you get down to it and we all die exactly once.

If my risk of death over six months time is 53% I’m not especially scared of a virus; yeah, it might get me but the odds are that something will cause my demise over the next 180 days one way or another. Put this up against the Covid shots which are carrying roughly 100 times the risk of associated death for a disease that, if you catch it, is much less likely to kill you in the general sense. Indeed, among healthy persons the risk of death is not 1/5th that of HIB which carries a risk of 1/25 (~4%) but rather approximately 1/50,000, including specifically among children under 18. That is among healthy people Covid-19 is two thousand times less likely to kill you than HIB is to kill a healthy baby.

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Stop the vaccines, there’s no need for them. Or wait: what’s in these pills? Is it ivermectin? With mRNA thrown in? We’ll never know, they’ll claim patent or something.

• Pfizer Developing Pill To Treat Covid-19, May Hit Market By End Of 2021 (RT)

Pfizer announced this week that, if development of its pill to treat Covid-19 infection continues at the current pace, and if regulatory approval is quick, the medication could be on the market in the US by the end of 2021.
Pfizer launched an early trial in March of the oral antiviral which tackles Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, by limiting the availability of the enzyme protease which the virus needs to replicate. “If all goes well, and we implement the same speed that we are, and if regulators do the same, and they are, I hope that (it will be available) by the end of the year,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said. By limiting the coronavirus’ capacity to self-replicate, the drug would theoretically be able to stave off the worst effects of Covid-19, the so-called ‘cytokine storm’ which overwhelms the human body’s immune system and lands people in the intensive care unit.


With a severely weakened viral enemy, thanks to the Pfizer medication, the human immune system should be able to fight off the infection on its own. According to Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer and president of worldwide research, development, and medical, the new drug could be prescribed “at the first sign of infection, without requiring that patients are hospitalized or in critical care.” The only available antiviral drug authorized for treating Covid-19 at present is Remdesivir, but this must be administered via injection by a healthcare professional. Were Pfizer’s new oral medication to gain regulatory approval, it could be administered at a patient’s local pharmacy, thus freeing up medical resources and reducing hospital visits in the process. “You could get it at home, and that could be a game-changer,” Bourla added. The oral treatment may also be effective against emerging mutations and variants, though more testing is needed to definitively prove this.

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Von der Leyen screwed up bigly so she goes biglier.

• The Biggest Vaccine Deal in History: EU to Scoop 1.8 Billion Pfizer Shots (GR)

On Thursday, the European Union is working to finalize a deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer-BioNTech for what is called the biggest COVID 19 vaccine deal in the world. The New York Times reports that the deal, which has not been signed just yet, will provide the EU with 1.8 billion vaccines through 2023. This would be the largest vaccine deal in history and it may go a long way in relieving the bloc’s struggling vaccination campaign. Already Pfizer had agreed to provide 300 million doses that the pharmaceutical giant has already promised the EU in a previous agreement. Pfizer and BioNTech agreed to supply an additional 200 million doses of their vaccine in February as well. The process began through extensive personal diplomacy between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla.

According to the Times report, von der Leyen and Bourla exchanged countless texts and phone calls for a month before the deal was drafted. The two first came into serious contact in January 2020 before the pace of their interaction picked up in February. Bourla explained in an interview that such conversations with a high ranking government official were not at all uncommon for him Bourla said he and von der Leyen had “developed a deep trust, because we got into deep discussions.” Previously, the EU was reliant on the British drug company AstraZeneca for its supply of vaccines. However, the bloc initiated a lawsuit this week against the company for delays in delivery of the vaccine. AstraZeneca had at one time committed to deliver 120 million vaccine doses by the end of March but in actuality only delivered 29.7 million inoculations by that deadline.

The EU has almost 448 million residents — more than one hundred million more than the US population of 328 million. The relationship hit another snag when it was reported that the AstraZeneca vaccine may be linked to some recipients suffering from blood clots. After the use of the vaccine had been paused by the EU after reports of thrombosis and death in those receiving the vaccine, the drug regulator admitted that it found a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and a rare clotting disorder.

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Chronic inflammation.

• Obesity Increases Risk Of Severe Covid-19, Particularly In Young People (RT)

People who are overweight are more likely to suffer from serious cases of coronavirus, with the associated risk especially prevalent among those younger than 40, according to a new study. Researchers from Oxford University used data from a database of nearly seven million English patients aged 20 years and older to examine whether there was a correlation between body mass index (BMI) and severe cases of the virus. They found that the likelihood of Covid-19 leading to hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death increased with weight. However, the risk was far greater for overweight patients between the ages of 20 and 39. On the other hand, high BMI did not appear to affect whether those aged 80 to 100 suffered from serious cases of the virus.

People with a BMI above 23 – the upper limit of the health range – are at risk of a more serious infection, while each one-point increase in BMI raises the chances of hospitalization by 5% and of ICU admission by 10%, the study concluded. The findings were published on Thursday in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, and represent one of the largest studies to date on how body weight affects Covid outcomes. The study’s lead author, Carmen Piernas, said that it’s possible that body fat may potentially cause a higher viral load for younger patients, but that more research was needed into the matter. Severe cases among the elderly are likely linked to weakened immune systems or pre-existing conditions, making weight a less noticeable factor.

Piernas and her colleagues noted that their observations could be used to guide public health initiatives aimed at curtailing serious cases of the disease. “Excess weight is a modifiable risk factor, and investment in the treatment of overweight and obesity and long-term preventive strategies could help reduce the severity of Covid-19 disease,” they wrote. Paul Aveyard, a co-author of the study, said that it was “highly plausible” that weight loss reduces the risk of serious coronavirus infection. The research adds to a growing list of scientific literature pointing to a correlation between weight and likelihood of severe Covid-19. A study published last year in Nature found that obesity significantly increased the risk of coronavirus-linked death. People with a BMI over 40 were at 92% higher risk of dying from the virus compared with people with a healthy BMI between 18.5-25.

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Adapted from Niall Ferguson’s new book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe,”

• Ike’s 1950s America Beat The ‘Asian Flu’ With Science & Common Sense (NF)

The first cases of Asian flu in the U.S. occurred early in June 1957, among the crews of ships berthed at Newport, R.I. Cases also appeared among the 53,000 boys attending the Boy Scout Jamboree at Valley Forge, Penn. As Scout troops traveled around the country in July and August, they spread the flu. In July there was a massive outbreak in Tangipahoa Parish, La. By the end of the summer, cases had also appeared in California, Ohio, Kentucky and Utah. It was the start of the school year that made the Asian flu an epidemic. The Communicable Disease Center, as the CDC was then called, estimated that approximately 45 million people—about 25% of the population—became infected with the new virus in October and November 1957. Younger people experienced the highest infection rates, from school-age children up to adults age 35-40.

Adults over 65 accounted for 60% of influenza deaths, an abnormally low share. Why were young Americans disproportionately vulnerable to the Asian flu? Part of the explanation is that they had not been as exposed as older Americans to earlier strains of influenza. But the scale and incidence of any contagion are functions of both the properties of the pathogen itself and the structure of the social network that it attacks. The year 1957 was in many ways the dawn of the American teenager. The first baby boomers born after the end of World War II turned 13 the following year. Summer camps, school buses and unprecedented social mingling after school ensured that between September 1957 and March 1958 the proportion of teenagers infected with the virus rose from 5% to 75%.

The policy response of President Dwight Eisenhower could hardly have been more different from the response of 2020. Eisenhower did not declare a state of emergency. There were no state lockdowns and, despite the first wave of teenage illness, no school closures. Sick students simply stayed at home, as they usually did. Work continued more or less uninterrupted. With workplaces open, the Eisenhower administration saw no need to borrow to the hilt to fund transfers and loans to citizens and businesses. The president asked Congress for a mere $2.5 million ($23 million in today’s inflation-adjusted terms) to provide additional support to the Public Health Service. There was a recession that year, but it had little if anything to do with the pandemic. The Congressional Budget Office has described the Asian flu as an event that “might not be distinguishable from the normal variation in economic activity.”

President Eisenhower’s decision to keep the country open in 1957-58 was based on expert advice. When the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) concluded in August 1957 that “there is no practical advantage in the closing of schools or the curtailment of public gatherings as it relates to the spread of this disease,” Eisenhower listened. As a CDC official later recalled: “Measures were generally not taken to close schools, restrict travel, close borders or recommend wearing masks….ASTHO encouraged home care for uncomplicated influenza cases to reduce the hospital burden and recommended limitations on hospital admissions to the sickest patients….Most were advised simply to stay home, rest and drink plenty of water and fruit juices.”

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“By March 8, 2021, for example, New Jersey had recorded 2,656 deaths per 1 million residents, while New York had 2,500 per 1 million residents. South Dakota had 2,149 deaths per 1 million residents, but loose-rules Utah had just 617.”

• Covid Lockdowns Cost Countless Jobs, Don’t Appear To Have Saved Lives (NYP)

We’ve locked down the economy instead of the virus. Jobs are recovering slower in New York and other states holding on to stringent COVID-19 restrictions than in states that fully reopened their economies, even though continued lockdown measures don’t appear to be saving lives, an ongoing study by WalletHub shows. Measures like limiting travel, keeping restaurants operating below capacity and leaving non-essential businesses closed have kept unemployment in New York State among the highest in the nation, while states with fewer restrictions are seeing jobs bounce back faster from the pandemic-induced recession, the study shows. Tragically, the data also suggests lockdowns didn’t do much to help save lives throughout the pandemic, while it’s clear that they sent millions to the unemployment line.

WalletHub started ranking states’ lockdowns in May 2020, using a formula that assigns a numerical value to mask mandates, large-gathering limits, school closings, “shelter in place” requirements and other measures put in place to try to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The rankings did not account for things like population density, the close quarters in urban households or use of public transportation, all of which play a role in virus transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, with the metro area besieged by the virus, WalletHub scored New Jersey’s lockdown measures the strictest in the country, followed closely by New York.

On the other end of the rankings, South Dakota, which imposed almost no restrictions, sat on top of the openness ranking, with Utah second. Over the course of the year, states imposed and eased a variety of restrictions in response to the level of virus cases and COVID-19 deaths. Where lockdowns were lifted, unemployment fell, but the restrictions didn’t seem to nudge death rates. By March 8, 2021, for example, New Jersey had recorded 2,656 deaths per 1 million residents, while New York had 2,500 per 1 million residents, according to the Covid Tracking Project. South Dakota had 2,149 deaths per 1 million residents, but loose-rules Utah had just 617.

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“[T]he Constitution does not have an asterisk that says only certain speech is free and protected..”

• Florida To Impose Hefty Fines On Tech Giants That Deplatform Politicians (RT)

Florida is expected to become the first state to penalize social media companies for banning politicians from their platforms. Proponents have hailed the bill as a victory for free speech, while critics call it a political ploy. Under SB 7072, tech giants like Facebook and Twitter will be prohibited from “permanently” blacklisting a candidate running for political office. Fines of $250,000 per day will be issued for knowingly deplatforming a candidate for statewide office, while $25,000-per-day fines will be imposed for banning other office-seekers. The bill only applies to platforms with more than 100 million monthly users, and companies will still be allowed to sanction politicians with 14-day suspensions. Individual posts can also be removed if they violate the platform’s guidelines.


The bill passed both houses of Florida’s legislature on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in the coming days. DeSantis advocated for the new law as part of a pledge to take on the “Big Tech cartel.” In February, he called for measures to be taken against the “monopoly of communications platforms” that “monitor and control” Floridians. State lawmakers who backed the legislation echoed similar sentiments. Republican state Rep. John Snyder said the bill would make it clear to Silicon Valley that they are not the “absolute arbiters of truth.” “[T]he Constitution does not have an asterisk that says only certain speech is free and protected,” he said.

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“I was put into Twitter jail for citing a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Cancel science is real.”

• Twitter Censors Accounts To Spoon-Feed The World Establishment Narratives (RT)

It’s one thing to have policies against violence, abuse, and harassment. But in “protecting” users, Twitter is hell-bent on censoring voices that rock the boat, even when all they have tweeted is a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Last week, Simon Goddek, who has a PhD in biotechnology and researches system dynamics, tweeted a link to a scientific study titled, “Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?” Some time later, his account was frozen and he received a notice from Twitter that it would remain frozen until he deleted the offending tweet, and for the 12 hours following that. In his Telegram group, he wrote: “I was put into Twitter jail for citing a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Cancel science is real.

“What’s especially concerning is that I didn’t make any personal comment on the paper’s content. I only said that regarding that paper, masks CAN lead to massive health damages. It’s the conclusion of a scientific piece of work that has been peer-reviewed by at least 2 experts in the field.” According to Twitter, Goddek violated their policy on, “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19.” The article in question wasn’t even as risqué as others and merely addressed undesirable side effects of mask wearing. How is that “misinformation”? [..] On April 17, Naomi Wolf tweeted she had been locked out of Twitter for the fourth time for sharing a Stanford study, “proving the lack of efficacy of masks.” That study was also peer-reviewed.

This isn’t merely a case of Twitter deciding that Goddek and Wolf were not in the position to be discussing the efficacy or dangers of masks. Twitter is censoring pretty much anything about Covid that doesn’t match the narrative promoted by the WHO, CDC, and other such bodies. Even a well-known epidemiologist has faced Twitter’s wrath. An article in the American Institute for Economic Research noted: “Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff and co-creator of the Great Barrington Declaration, one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious -disease experts in the world has been censored by Twitter. His tweet on how not everyone needs a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 was not taken down. He had a warning slapped on it and users have been prevented from liking or retweeting the post.”

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One scary girl.

• Victoria Nuland Is Now Highest-Ranking Member of US Foreign Service

On Thursday the US Senate confirmed Victoria Nuland as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, which has been described as the fourth most important position in the State Department. Though as the first three are filled by political appointees and the other by a career foreign service officer, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs is the highest-ranking member of the US Foreign Service. In an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April as part of her confirmation process, she reflected on her thirty-two years in the Foreign Service working for five presidents of both parties and nine secretaries of state. She retailed some of her “historic moments” in that career, among them “working on tough arms control problems and conflicts from Rwanda to Haiti to Bosnia and Kosovo.”

But what she expressed as her last-listed and perhaps proudest moment was, while she served as Deputy Chief of Mission at NATO, the military bloc for the first time activating its Article 5 collective defense clause, which contributed to the now twenty-year-old war in Afghanistan, a comprehensive naval interdiction mission in the Mediterranean Sea (Operation Active Endeavor) and European AWACS flights over the U.S. along with several other missions. A major part of her career has been spent at NATO headquarters: she was Deputy Permanent Representative (ambassador) to NATO from 2000-2003 and Permanent Representative from 2005-2008. In both positions she was instrumental in recruiting military forces from NATO allies and partners for the war in Afghanistan, with NATO military personnel also stationed in Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

At one point 130,000 of the 150,000 foreign troops in the country served under NATO command in the International Security Assistance Force: service members from 54 countries. Never before or since have troops from so many nations fought in a war, much less in one theater of war or one country. She also worked on promoting seven nations to NATO membership at the historic Istanbul, Turkey summit in 2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. All are in Eastern Europe; all but Slovenia were members of the defunct Warsaw Pact; three – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – were Soviet republics. Bulgaria and Romania provided the U.S. and NATO with eight military bases in the following two years. NATO has flown fighter jets from air bases in Latvia and Lithuania for years, in the case of the second nation since 2004.

[..] Yesterday no doubt there was rejoicing and exultation in Kiev. There should have been weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Donbass and Crimea. And grave concern in Moscow. Nuland like her boss Joe Biden may have unfinished business in Ukraine.

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“It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, who are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits.”

• US Interferes in Mexico’s Phaseout of Glyphosate and GMO Corn (CD)

A coalition of 80 U.S. agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to “respect Mexico’s sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies”—specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn. “Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree,” Timothy A. Wise of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (ITAP) noted earlier this year. “His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock.”

“Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States,” Wise added. “Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops.” The groups’ letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Its lead author is Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA). “We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico’s decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming,” Schafer said in a statement.

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