nakedcapitalism | Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s missile attack over the last
weekend, despite many reports of US and its allies urging Israel to
declare their defense against a very large-scale Iran missile barrage to
be a victory. The US and Iran both appear united in wanting to stop
further escalation. But Israel has a mind of its own, as demonstrated by
its stunning attack on Iran’s embassy grounds in Damascus which
initiated this crisis.
It’s possible that Israel could use a cyber attack to retaliate. But
that seems unlikely given Israel’s long established policy of making
hard hits back in response to assaults. It also seems unlikely given
what Alastair Crooke has described as the implicit premise of Israel,
that Jews in its borders would be assured of safety. That sense of
security took a body blow on October 7. Israelis seem almost driven to
re-establish their appearance of military potency.
The next question is whether Israel can be herded or coerced into
what would amount to a negotiated attack on Iran, as in hitting targets
conveyed to Tehran in advance so it could bolster defenses and get
personnel and high-value equipment out of the way. There is still a
possibility that Israel could engage in deception, as in communicate it
would strike certain locations, then hit different ones.
Another possibility is Israel blowing up Al Aqsa mosque. That would
be disproportionate and would set the entire Muslim world on fire. From a recent post at NC by Kevin Kirk:
So the Temple Institute Organization, based in Jerusalem (and supported by Henry Swieca, a wealthy New York financier), who are committed to building the 3rd
Temple and restoring animal sacrifice, have swung into action and
submitted an application to the Israeli police to use knives to
slaughter 5 perfect red heifers as part of a purification ritual
elucidated in Numbers Chapter 19 of the Bible. This ceremony, which is
taking place on a specially built altar situated on the Mount of Olives
opposite the Temple Mount, is set to take place in April 22nd,
which is during Passover. Once the purification ceremony has been
undertaken then the stage is set for the building of the Temple, leading
to the coming of the Messiah and the final battle between good and evil
on a hill just outside Haifa called Tel Megiddo, or, as it is called in
the Bible: Armageddon.
Some Israelis are already planning their Temple Mount project. Echoes
of Israel developers promoting their plans for Gaza post-Palestinians,
but with vastly higher stakes:
For now, we will limit ourselves to the focus of Western concern,
that of a kinetic attack on Iran. A remarkable story at the Financial
Times, prominently places as a “Big Read”, Ukraine’s air defence struggle shows risks to Israel,
departs radically from Anglosphere practice of heavily propagandized
coverage about both the Ukraine and Gaza (and now Iran) conflict. It’s
quite the twofer. It not only admits what until recently has been
verboten, that Russia has seriously weakened Ukraine’s air defenses and
the West can’t do much to shore them back up. It also provides a
detailed description of Iran’s barrage and discusses how despite claims
of success, they showed Israel vulnerability, particularly to a
sustained campaign by Iran. This is not all that different from what you
see in the independent media.
So why is the Financial Times making so many admissions against
Western interest? It’s not as if these facts are not well known among
insiders, particularly the military. My guess is this is an effort to
influence Israel loyalists in political circles, particularly the US, as
well as private Israel influencers, that escalating with Iran has very
high odds of turning out badly for Israel. Nevertheless, it’s surprising
to see so much candor while events are still in play.
nakedcapitalism | I recently came across this piece
from the Century Foundation titled “A Bolder American Foreign Policy
Means More Values and Less War.” Its central argument is that the US
must “recenter values” like “multilateralism and human rights that are
core to its identity.”
The Century Foundation calls itself a “a progressive, independent
think tank,” and this particular piece appears to mean well but is just
as disconnected from reality than all the neocon think tanks’ war
mongering policy papers saying Washington will prevail as it takes on
Russia, China, Iran, and whoever else it feels like.
The Century Foundation authors possess a Hollywoodized idea of
America that isn’t a land filled with brutal class struggle but virtue,
which flow out into its foreign policy that stands for international
humanitarian or human rights law. I think anyone with a basic
understanding of current events or recent history knows how ridiculous
this is, and yet it is repeated ad nauseam by every purported think
tank. I suppose this is a classic example of Upton Sinclair’s saying
that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his
salary depends on his not understanding it,” but I think the Century
Foundation is onto something with its focus on values. It’s just that it
has it backwards. The problem is that values are what has the US on
the brink of starting World War III in multiple locations.
So what are the core values that do have it such a position – and whose are they?
I think the story of former US President Herbert Hoover is
instructive. He had interests in mines in Russia until they were seized
by the Bolsheviks. [1] Hoover never forgot about it and remained terrified of Communists for the rest of his life – and for good reason considering how much he stood to lose.
Though Hoover got booted out of office in 1932, he played a central
role in organizing capitalists to counter worker organization both in
the US and abroad. His legacy lives on at Stanford’s neocon Hoover
Institution. Throughout his life, he remained a major admirer of
pre-Soviet Russia: “At the top was a Russian noble family and at the
bottom 100,000 peasants and workers with nobody much in between but the
priesthood and the overseers.”
That pretty much sums up the capitalist class’ enduring vision not
just for Russia, but everywhere. Ownership of Russian mines or Opium
Wars in China might not factor much into my or your everyday life, but
you can bet it’s an important part of American ruling class ideology.
Whose values? The dominant value at play there is a belief that as
Western capitalists they have a right and a duty to exploit and profit
off of every corner of the globe. Just like capital must dominate labor,
it must expand and find new sources of revenue. If governments in
Russia and China impede that progress, they must be destroyed.
Rather than bromides like more American “values,” the following are
some questions or thought exercises for think tanks to consider –
whether they want to win another war or maybe even quit starting so many
of them.
Can You Practice Realpolitik with Gangsters?
The US is a market state that is dominated by and run for
transnational capital. Its foreign policy and the military are a tool of
the American oligarchy. Therefore, any serious policy discussion needs
to deal with the fact that national interests as they’re expressed today
are not in any real sense national but representative of the interests
of a small cohort of the super wealthy.
When US officials go on about spreading “freedom,” they’re not lying.
It’s just their idea of freedom is a state devoted to high profits – free from the political whims of local populations that could degrade an investment’s expected return.
Let’s remember there likely wouldn’t be any problem with Russia had
Putin not put an end to the 1990s shock therapy administered by the
Western finance capitalists who were making a killing by pillaging
Russian resources. Like Bert Hoover, they’re haunted by that opportunity
snatched away from them, and they’ve been trying to get it back for a
quarter century now.
The question is will American capital ever voluntarily give up? Will
it ever say “okay, we’re satisfied with what we’ve got here, you do your
thing in your sphere of influence”?
It’s not like Moscow and Beijing haven’t tried. Russia for example
floated the idea of joining NATO or working out some other security
arrangement. For decades after the end of the USSR, Russia tried to be
accepted into the West’s club to no avail.
China, too, constantly repeats the refrain that the world is big enough for both Beijing and Washington. It invited the US to join it in its Belt and Road Initiative.
The US could have helped steer projects that would have benefited both
countries. While such cooperation between the two big powers wouldn’t be
a panacea for all the world’s problems, it would likely mean a lot
better spot than current one. Instead the US wanted the whole pie and
instead we got the TPP, sanctions, export bans, a new Cold War, a spy
balloon scandal, the disastrous effort to weaken Russia before taking on
China, the successful effort to sever Europe from Eurasia to disastrous
effect for Europe, and the desire to see a Ukraine sequel in Taiwan
and/or the South China Sea.
There is a lot of confusion over why the West keeps escalating in a
losing effort. Why, for example, are Western governments going around
begging for shells to send Ukraine rather than accepting the L? The
desperation seems to stem from the creeping realization that their
system is coming undone. The entire post-WWII elite American mindset is
built on the foundation of worldwide profit expansion via silicon and
fire, and if they throw everything at Russia and lose, well a whole new
domino theory could come into play – one where parasitic Western finance
capital is driven back. (Granted it might in most cases be replaced by a
more local form, but it’s nonetheless frightening for the Western
honchos.) Just look at what’s happening to France in Françafrique! And
the US in the Middle East!
The fact that the West can no longer even manufacture enough weapons
to supply its proxy wars almost certainly means that the dominoes will
keep falling.
middleasteye | It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defence systems that intercepted Iran's massive drone and missile attack overnight, according to a former financial adviser to Israel's military.
"The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per
night," estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with
Ynet news.
Aminoach highlighted that the staggering price tag stands in contrast
to the relatively low amount that Iran had spent to launch its assault,
which some estimates have put at less than 10 percent of what it cost
Israel to stop the attack.
Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel on
Saturday, in response to an Israeli attack on its consulate in Syria
that killed two senior Revolutionary Guard commanders earlier this
month.
Israel said its military forces and its allies had intercepted 99
percent of the missiles, but some ballistic missiles penetrated Israeli
defences and hit the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel.
"If we're talking about ballistic missiles that need to be brought
down with an Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be brought down
with other missiles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], which we
actually bring down mainly with fighter jets," he said.
"Then add up the costs - $3.5m for an Arrow missile, $1m for a
David's Sling, such and such costs for jets. An order of magnitude of
4-5bn shekels."
David's Sling is a weapons system meant to intercept medium to
long-range rockets and missiles. The Arrow system was designed to thwart
long-range missiles, including the types of ballistic missiles Iran
launched on Saturday and of long-range missiles launched by the Houthis
in Yemen.
newsweek | Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was booed by members of the audience of The View after expressing regret for his endorsement of President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Boos were heard on Friday morning after the airing of a short clip from a recent Fox News
interview with the actor and professional wrestling star, who is set to
return to the ring for the first time in eight years at this weekend's
WWE WrestleMania event.
Johnson said that he was not "happy with the state of America" in the
clip and revealed that he would not be endorsing Biden in this year's
election because he feels his 2020 endorsement had caused "division."
"The
endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one that I thought was
the best decision for me at that time," Johnson said. "Am I going to do
that again this year? That answer's no, I'm not going to do that."
"I realized what that caused back then was something that tears me up in my guts—back then and now—which is division," he added.
The View crowd responded to Johnsons remarks by loudly booing, seemingly taking co-host Joy Behar and the show's other co-hosts by surprise with their overwhelmingly negative response.
"Should I pay any attention to someone who gives an interview on Fox
where they lie every day?" Behar asked the crowd, before questioning
whether celebrities should "endorse public figures" or "keep their
politics to themselves."
Some in the audience could be heard responding "no" after Behar asked
if celebrities should make endorsements. A short time later, the crowd
made their opinions on former President Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy clear after co-host Sunny Hostin weighed in.
"I
do think we're living in a time where we have someone [Trump] running
for president that is an existential threat to democracy," Hostin said,
prompting loud cheers and applause from the audience.
"Now is the time—if you have a platform—you must be active, you must speak out," she added, drawing additional applause.
While endorsing Biden in 2020, Johnson described himself as a "political
independent and centrist" who was making his first public endorsement
due to the outcome of the election being "critical."
strategic culture | Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to
the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources
in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of
investigation.
December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA
mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to
sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the
middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign
behind the lines.”
January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets
Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an
empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for
asymmetric war.
February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty
surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive
signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.
February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.
Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been
in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter
alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State
factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or
another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the
dots.
Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in
Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to
be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).
Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in
place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.
March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.
March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.
March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies
simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling
their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two
days.
March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman
performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion
targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before
the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus
was massive, so the op is postponed.
March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.
ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms
The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to
previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir
Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a
dash for the border.
And that brings us to the Tajik connection.
There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the
ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on
Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand
rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a
concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a
weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.
The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were
accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective
use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away,
almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the
border to Ukraine.
All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty
counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all –
quite literally.
A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish
intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat
Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told
the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the
op.
And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.
The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah
Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the
Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in
Pakistan.
Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen
Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad
al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the
government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a
crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those
classic inter-jihadi squabbles.
Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent
attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another
vector of the “nasty surprises”.
Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired
citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty
motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens
worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually
indistinguishable from ISIS.
Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the
classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by
the CIA and the Pentagon.
Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed
ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by
Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.
The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon
Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando.
Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.
The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never
features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom.
Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the
500 thousand ruble reward.
After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat
– the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have
been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not
identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then
Afghanistan.
That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have
been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the
client.
The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs
Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror
galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s.
Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the
past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.
Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with
assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these
connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus
outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR
routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat
rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.
One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of
the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine,
Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.
The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by
pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by
ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under
the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.
The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi
of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile;
adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides
him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor
become disposable.
Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the
Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware
of what he was carrying,
As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a
gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring
ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then
to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project
ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS
goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the
Taliban.
Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).
The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking
most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established,
there will be hell to pay.
But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are
not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western
intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with
Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.
The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists
from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in
terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will
be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of
managing these networks.
But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems
to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial
middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.
Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators”
chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority –
Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a
multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for
centuries.
In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the
Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment –
whatever and wherever it takes.
expats.cz | United States Senator J.D. Vance has written a letter to
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urging her to suspend the sale
Sporting Products, the arms and ammunition division of U.S. company
Vista Outdoor, to Czechoslovak Group (CSG). According to Vance, there
are potential security risks in the sale to the Czech company, including
alleged ties to Russia.
CSG, a prominent industrial-technology holding, entered into a $1.91 billion (roughly CZK 44.6 billion) sales agreement with Vista Outdoor earlier this month, marking a significant deal within the arms industry.
Senator Vance, however, has raised concerns about CSG's alleged history
of collusion and alleged connections with entities hostile to the United
States. In his letter, Vance stressed the need for a thorough
assessment of potential risks, stating that the transaction poses clear
threats to U.S. national security.
CSG,
in response to the senator's claims, has vehemently denied any links to
Russian authorities. Andrej Čírtek, a spokesperson for the Czech
holding company, emphasized that CSG is a private entity committed to
selling its products to partner countries within NATO and the EU.
Čírtek
highlighted CSG's collaboration with leading defense companies,
including U.S.-based Raytheon and General Dynamics European Land
Systems.
Senator
Vance's letter further referenced CSG's alleged ties to Russian
President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, raising concerns about the
company's sponsorship of a show in Moscow aimed at facilitating Russian
authorities' access to European military technology.
CSG
has countered these allegations, asserting that their exports have
always been conducted with duly granted licenses. The company
spokesperson pointed to their previous acquisition of Fiochci, a
U.S.-based small-caliber ammunition manufacturer, as well as high-level
security clearances, as evidence of their adherence to stringent
security protocols.
"Our
acquisition of Fiochci, which manufactures small-caliber ammunition in
the U.S., has successfully passed the U.S. Committee on Foreign
Investment's review," Čírtek states. "Some of the companies owned by
CSG have both Czech and NATO security clearances. None of this would be
possible for a company with ties to Russia."
new atlas | Soldiers and tactical unit police officers often have a lot of heavy gear to carry, including the ballistic body armor that they're wearing. That's where the ExoM Up-Armoured Exoskeleton is intended to come in, as it's load-reducing and bulletproof.
The exoskeleton is manufactured by German company Mehler Protection, which designed the product in collaboration with Canadian biomechanics tech company Mawashi Science & Technology, and French tactical police force GIGN (Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale).
Body armor panels throughout the full-body exoskeleton provide ballistic protection up to the European standard of VPAM 8. This means that they can withstand being hit by three 7.62 × 39-mm rounds (which AK-47 rifles use) fired from a distance of approximately 10 meters (33 ft).
Additionally, the exoskeleton's titanium frame reportedly redistributes as much as 70% of the overall load from the wearer's shoulders down to the ground (via structural soles inside the user's boots). At the same time, the ExoM's flexible spine, sliding waist belt and articulated hip, knee, and ankle joints are claimed to ensure that the wearer retains up to 99% of their usual range of motion.
Finally, because the ExoM is a passive exoskeleton (meaning it doesn't utilize any motorized actuators), it doesn't have any batteries that add weight or require charging – the latter could definitely prove challenging in remote locations, or on long missions.
We're still waiting to hear back from Mehler regarding information such as the type of ballistic material utilized, and the setup's total weight.
dailymail | Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador has spelled out a series of demands from the U.S. ranging from
visas to a multi-billion infusion of funds – even as the Biden
administration seeks to pressure Mexico to do more on its part to address the migrant crisis.
He
wants the U.S. to deploy $20 billion plan to help Mexico and Central
American countries dealing with the root causes of migration – while
also calling for wholesale changes in U.S.-Cuba policy.
'We
are going to help, as we always do,' López Obrador said in a Friday
speech 'Mexico is helping reach agreements with other countries, in this
case Venezuela,' he said, before pivoting to his wish list.
'We also want something done about the (U.S.) differences with Cuba,'
López Obrador said. 'We have already proposed to President Biden that a
U.S.-Cuba bilateral dialogue be opened,' he said in remarks at a Friday
press conference.
Lopez Obrador also
said he wants the U.S. to provide visas to at least 10 million Hispanic
migrants who have been living in the U.S. for 10 years or longer.
His long list of demands come even as the
Biden administration is asking Mexico to do more, as a surge of migrants
continue to flow across the border. It also comes at a time when the
Biden administration needs to show progress on the issue while getting
hammered by Republican rivals and even some prominent Democratic mayors
on the costs and social impacts of the surge.
Border encounters hit another stunning milestone in December with 300,000 apprehensions.
The U.S. is leaning on Mexico to do more to reduce those numbers. Late last month Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Mexico to meet with López Obrador.
In
one sign that Mexico has the capacity to have an impact, arrests at the
southern border fell to about 2,500 Monday, according to the Associated
Press, a drop from 10,000 during a December peak.
caityjohnstone | We
could have been so much more. We have the ability to create a healthy
and harmonious world and collaborate to give everyone on earth
everything they need, and instead we’re killing the biosphere while
arguing about whether or not it’s anti-semitic to oppose an active
genocide.
We
could have peace on earth and move from competition-based systems to
collaboration-based ones to maximize our creative and innovative
potential and spend our existence exploring the outer universe and the
universes within ourselves, and instead we’re ramping up brinkmanship
between nuclear-armed states and arguing about whether or not it’s
ethical to rain military explosives on a giant concentration camp full
of children.
We
have the technology to let every scientist on earth share ideas and
information with each other around the world in real time in any
language, and instead we’ve fractured scientific development into
atomized little echo chambers of closely-guarded secrets in the name of
profit generation and “national security”.
How
did we get here? How were we duped into trading paradise on earth for
this lunatic dystopia? How did we allow ourselves to give up everything
our species has the capability to be in exchange for this nightmarish
paradigm of endless ecocide and exploitation and oppression and war and
militarism?
Near
as I can tell, it’s ultimately because our species evolved these
massive brains very quickly which we still haven’t learned how to use in
a mature way, like a kid learning to ride a bicycle right after the
training wheels have been removed. This has allowed us to dominate the
planet while still ourselves being dominated by primitive fear-based
impulses which were much better suited for our early evolutionary
ancestors as they strived to survive the dangerous plains of Africa as
small prey animals.
We
develop egos in early childhood to help us feel safe and secure in a
confusing world full of giants, which most of us go on to use in highly
maladaptive ways throughout the remainder of our lives. Our psychology
is riddled with cognitive biases, which the clever manipulators among us
can use to dupe us into mass-scale behavior which benefits them rather
than behaving in a way which benefits each other and our ecosystem.
The
most clever of these manipulators are able to use their cleverness to
rise to the top of our political, governmental, commercial and financial
systems around the world, and they use increasingly sophisticated
methods of propaganda to dupe the rest of us into moving in alignment
with their will. And their will is not wise or intelligent; it’s driven
by the same primitive fear-based impulses that the rest of the humans
trapped in egoic consciousness are driven by.
So
here we are. That’s why we now find ourselves in this profoundly
dysfunctional civilization where the biosphere is treated like an enemy
and human beings are treated like fuel and minds are being marinated in
an increasingly vapid mainstream culture where everything is fake and
stupid. That’s why we don’t have paradise on earth, and that’s why the
bombs are falling on Gaza today.
But
it is just a phase. A kid who’s learning to ride a bike doesn’t remain
on wobbly wheels forever. Eventually we’ll get the hang of this thing.
Eventually we’ll grow into these giant new brains of ours and become a
conscious species.
Assuming we don’t wipe ourselves out first, of course.
moneycircus | Zionism has lost its mask; for it is, and has always been, a tool of
globalist imperialism. (We’ll leave the religious aspects until a later
article.)
Readers know well the story. The European empires were
corporate ventures, beginning around 1600. Operating under royal charter
or exemption, corporations carved out territories according to where
the narcotics, textiles, spices, minerals and, later, the oil lay.
First
they drew on the investment of shareholders, and later the lending of
banks which provided a shot of steroids to the business of empire and
war, paying for troops and mercenaries, and greater and ever more costly
wars.
Today there is oil in them there hills, namely the Golan
Heights, for which Rothschild-backed Genie Energy (its board is a Who’s
Who of the deep state) secured a license in 2013.
There is oil off
the shore of Gaza, in the Mediterranean, and lip-smacking plans for
pipelines this way and that, with the potential to flow north to Europe
or east to Asia.
We saw this coming more than a year ago — as an outcome of the Ukraine war — when the NordStream pipeline was detonated. See Europe, Gas And The Endgame (Sep 30, 2022)
Longstanding
plans have resurfaced for a new canal to rival Egypt’s Suez, flowing
from the Red Sea directly to the Levantine gas fields, disappropriating
the residents of Gaza.
The British Empire’s favourite narrative is that as herders and nomads they are transients, having no land, nor rights thereto.
And so there are plans to expel much of the population of Gaza to allow for these projects.
While these economic machinations unfold, the general attitude is one
of compliance, lock step and censorship. UK political leaders and
corporate executives are firing any who call for ceasefire.
Florida has acted against students showing sympathy for Palestinians.
The
U.S., France and Britain may outlaw public critique of Zionism just at
the moment it is being exposed as an extension of globalism and
imperialism.
Such gagging is straight out of the Covid censorship
play book, and that is the connection they do not want you to make:
exposing the lie that governments care about the people whom they so
recently terrorised and poisoned.
For why should the same
politicians who marched in lock step to the dictates of big pharma and
the military care about Israel except for its role as a regional
bridgehead? It is the world’s most-jabbed nation — the laboratory for
Pfizer, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted.
Palestinians were not given the jab. He had other plans for them.
vigilantnews | Soon, mRNA technology will be coming to flu vaccines.
Supporters tout that the adaptability of mRNA technology allows for
quicker response times in developing vaccines that can more accurately
target circulating influenza strains, potentially making yearly flu
shots more effective.
Furthermore, work is being done to apply
mRNA technology to “treat” various other diseases. It is being explored
as a potential treatment for sickle-cell disease and the autoimmune disorder, multiple sclerosis. Additionally, its application in cancer treatment is under investigation, with the aim of harnessing the immune system to combat malignancies.
The fight against HIV, a long-standing global health challenge, is also on mRNA’s radar. Currently, three experimental HIV vaccines, built on an mRNA design akin to the COVID-19 vaccines, are in the early stages of human clinical trials.
The award to Karikó and Weissman is not without controversy.
Dr. Robert Malone, a renowned scientist, medical doctor, and pioneer in mRNA vaccine technology, made some fiery comments on “X.”
He stated, “Kariko and Weissman get the Nobel, not for inventing mRNA vaccines (because I did that) but for adding the pseudouridine that allowed unlimited spike toxins to be manufactured in what could have been a safe and effective vaccine platform, if safely developed.”
Malone
further criticized the integrity of the award process, suggesting undue
influence from pharmaceutical giants. “Pfizer has been campaigning for
this since 2020 - at first, they even claimed (as did Kariko) that she
invented the mRNA vaccine platform technology. Pfizer donates heavily to the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel. Science has been hijacked again by big pharma.”
The
decision to honor Karikó and Weissman while omitting key contributors
like Dr. Robert Malone raises questions about the narrative that’s being
pushed surrounding mRNA technology. One thing is sure: COVID is just
the beginning. And what will likely ensue will be subsequent campaigns
to get more mRNA injected into every man, woman, and child.
MOSCOW,
Oct 4 (Reuters) - Russia tested its emergency public warning systems
across the country on Wednesday, blaring out sirens and interrupting
some television and radio broadcasts to warn the population to stay
calm.
The
test, first conducted in 2020, is part of a new initiative that
requires authorities to conduct tests twice a year, starting from Sept.
1.
It
comes, though, amid the war in Ukraine that has triggered the deepest
crisis in Russia's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis.
At
around 10:40 a.m. Moscow time (0740 GMT), sirens wailed across some
parts of Russia and stern announcements demanded "Attention everyone!".
"The readiness of warning systems is being checked, please remain calm," speakers said in a stern male Russian voice.
"When
you hear the sound of a siren, you need to remain calm and not panic,
turn on the TV - any publicly accessible channel or radio - and listen
to the information message," the Ministry of Emergency Situations said
in a statement.
"The
warning system is designed to timely convey a signal to the population
in the event of a threat or emergency of a natural or man-made nature."
The
United States was also conducting a large-scale test of its public
warning systems on Wednesday, via U.S. mobile phones and TV and radio
stations.
The
purpose of the U.S. test is to ensure that the systems "continue to be
effective in alerting the public to emergencies, particularly at the
national level", the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, said
in a press release.
Many other countries have also conducted alert system tests for crises and disasters in recent years.
The
Russian test falls on the 91st anniversary of the creation of Russia's
civil defence system and follows nationwide educational drills in August
on practicing actions and procedures in emergency situations, Russian
media reported.
The
goal of Russia's tests is to assess the warning systems, the readiness
of personnel responsible for launching them and raise public awareness,
the emergency ministry said.
off-guardian | The first group of privatizations occurred in the first fascist nation, Italy, in the 1920s; and the second group of privatizations occurred in the second fascist nation,
Germany, in the 1930s. Privatizations started under Mussolini, and then
were instituted under Hitler. That got the fascist ball rolling; and,
after a few decades of hiatus in the wake of fascism’s embarrassing
supposed defeat in WW II, it resurfaced and then surged yet again after
1970, when fascist forces in the global aristocracy, such as via the
CIA, IMF, Bilderberg group, and Trilateral Commission, imposed the
global reign of the world’s main private holders of bonds and of stocks:
the world’s aristocrats are taking on an increasing percentage of what
were previously public assets.
Privatizations, after starting in fascisms during the pre-WWII years,
resumed again in the 1970s under the fascist Chilean leader Augusto
Pinochet; and in the 1980s under the fascist British leader Margaret
Thatcher (a passionate supporter of apartheid in South Africa) and also
under the smiling fascist American leader Ronald Reagan (who followed
the prior success of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of White
domination in the by-then resurgent-conservative U.S., and might even be
said to have been America’s first fully fascist President); and in the
1990s under several fascist (formerly communist) leaders throughout the
former Soviet Union, under the guidance of Harvard University’s fascist economics department,
which transferred control from the former nomenklatura, to the new
(Western-dependent) “oligarchs,” all under the virtual guidance of its
former head, Lawrence Summers, who then was serving as the World Bank
President.
Mussolini was the man-of-the-future, but — after Franklin Delano
Roosevelt died, and finally Thatcher and Reagan and other
‘free-marketeers’ came into office — Mussolini’s “future” has
increasingly become our own “now”: the Axis Powers’ ideology has
actually been winning in the post-WW-II world. Only, this time, it’s
called instead by such names as “libertarianism” or “neo-liberalism,” no
longer “fascism,” so that only the true-believing fascists, the
aristocrats, will even know that it’s actually fascism. It’s their Big
Con. It’s their Big Lie. Just renaming fascism as “libertarianism” or
“neo-liberalism,” has fooled the masses to think that it’s
pro-democratic. “Capitalism” has thus come to be re-defined to refer to
only the aristocratically controlled form of capitalism: fascism. The
ideological battle has thus apparently been won by a cheap
terminological deceit. That’s all it takes for dictatorship to be able
to win.
The democratically controlled form of capitalism, such as in some
northern European countries, has commonly been called “socialism”; and,
of course, it’s opposed to all forms of dictatorship, both communist and
fascist. Socialism is the democratic form of capitalism. It’s not the
dictatorial form of socialism, which is Marxism. It’s the form of
capitalism that serves the public, instead of the aristocracy, at any
point where the two have conflicting interests. It subordinates the
aristocracy to the public. Fascism instead subordinates the public to
the aristocracy, which is the natural tendency (because the “World’s Richest 0.7% Own 13.67 Times as Much as World’s Poorest 68.7%,” and the “World’s Richest 80 People Own Same Amount as World’s Bottom 50%”).
whatbitcoindid |Matthew Pines is the Director of Intelligence at the Krebs Stamos Group and a Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute specializing in national security. In this interview, we discuss the growing sense that the US government may imminently disclose the existence of craft of non-human origin and that it actually possesses intact and partially intact examples of such craft.
- - - -
On July 26th, next Wednesday, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), a new term government agencies use for UFOs. Many believe that this change in nomenclature and the hearing is part of a process aimed at preparing the public for disclosure that the existence of non-human technology is real and that US government agencies and corporations may have retrieved craft of non-human origin.
Until recently, UAPs/UFOs were considered a fringe topic. Those in political circles and mainstream media organisations would publicly avoid the subject: it was officially ridiculed, and those who engaged in it risked career suicide. Now, it has suddenly become acceptable to seriously discuss the matter. On Monday (17th July), the White House itself stated UAPs are a "real issue" having "an impact" on the United States Air Force.
What changed?
Matthew Pines take us through the mechanisms of government bureaucracy in terms of official secrets: who gets clearances and the ‘need to know’. Matthew then takes us through the recent extraordinary whistleblower claims of a government coverup in relation to UAPs, why some within the government now feel enabled and compelled to come forward with extraordinary claims, and an effort to silence them.
It’s not hyperbolic to state that if such claims are publicly substantiated, it will be the biggest event in human history. It is telling that esteemed people who have close knowledge of this subject matter, including prominent politicians, high-ranking officials and qualified professionals, give credence to the UAP phenomenon. We wait with bated breath to see if these extraordinary claims are backed with extraordinary evidence.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00: Introductions 00:07:02: Matthew's background 00:14:13: Government structure of secrecy 00:24:41: Whistleblowing and potential scenarios 00:46:15: Credible explanations for ETs 00:54:52: Linking ETs to nuclear sites 01:04:04: Technological developments, and AI 01:10:10: Evidence and trusted reports 01:24:36: Normalising aliens 01:33:04: Implications for financial and political stability 01:45:01: Tangent to all things quantum 02:06:08: Interspecies communication 02:14:54: Timeline to truth 02:25:32: Final comments
censorednews |The COVID-19 lie that started it all—before lockdowns and mandates—was the lie that the virus was more deadly than it actually
was. On March 3, 2020, the media cited the World Health Organization to
spread the misinformation that the global death rate of COVID-19 was
3.4%. Years later, the WHO’s much-expanded dataset now shows the real
global case fatality rate is less than 1%. However, at the time, when
the President of the United States correctly pointed out the figure was
inflated, he was viciously attacked for “downplaying” the virus, as the
WHO’s misleading statistic was regurgitated in the press.
“WHO says the death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought” - CNBC
“The death rate now estimated at 3.4% for anyone afflicted with this virus” - FOX News
“3.4% of people who get coronavirus die from it.” - USA TODAY
The WHO’s death rate was severely inflated because most COVID-19 cases are mild with no symptoms
and are therefore never reported. In fact, Dr. Fauci and the Director
of the CDC, Dr. Redfield predicted as much just three days prior to the
WHO’s misleading 3.4% death rate. In the New England Journal of
Medicine, Fauci and Redfield concluded the number could be “considerably less than 1%”.
This contradiction between US public health officials and the WHO went
mostly ignored. The media was only triggered into a response when Donald
Trump used the same scientific reasoning on FOX News with Sean Hannity.
PRESIDENT
TRUMP: Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number. Now, this is
just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people
that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very
mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor.
They don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.
Trump
repeated his reasoning for clarity, although his full explanation was
later deleted from nearly all mainstream news segments which criticized
him for sharing thoughts “based on nothing” (John Berman, “CNN New Day”,
CNN, 3/5/20).
PRESIDENT TRUMP: When you do have a
death…all of a sudden, it seems like three or four percent, which is a
very high number, as opposed to a fraction of one percent. But, again,
they don't know about the easy cases, because the easy cases don't go to
the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many
cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the
number—personally, I would say the number is way under 1 percent.
MEDIA MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION
Former Vox reporter and special guest to the Biden White House, Aaron Rupar, reflexively attacked Trump’s rational, and ultimately correct, take on the WHO death rate, as “astoundingly irresponsible”.
Over
the following days, Trump was mocked on nearly every major television
channel (CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, & Comedy Central), where he was
accused of lying.
MSNBC hosts and experts labeled Trump’s correct
take on the death rate as “not correct”, “not true”, “dishonest”, and
“disinformation” (Andrea Mitchell, Ben Rhodes, and Geoff Bennett on
“Andrea Mitchell Reports”); “false information”, (Chris Jansing on “Live
with Hallie Jackson”); and “misinformation” (“Live with Velshi and
Ruhle”).
CNN’s reporters and pundits did the same, calling
Trump’s informed skepticism “disinformation” (Brian Stelter, “CNN
Newsroom”); “misinformation” (Anderson Cooper, “Anderson Cooper 360”);
and “sketchy information” (Jim Acosta, “The Situation Room with Wolf
Blitzer”).
(NOTE: This is only a small sample of the false accusations.)
After
the news set the narrative, late-night hosts took their cues and
obediently forwarded the message that WHO’s word reigns supreme and
therefore Trump is crazy to question it.
amgreatness | The head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC)
Protection forces released a statement this week suggesting that
nefarious officials in the United States developed and deployed COVID-19
for “offensive purposes” and may be plotting a new pandemic.
The United States government officially claims that its scientists
study pathogens in biolabs around the world to develop preventative
measures to potential viruses, but Moscow does not buy that.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said that the United States may have
played a role in inflicting the COVID-19 pathogen on the world and may
be working to create another biological crisis.
“We do not rule out the United States may use so-called defensive
technologies for offensive purposes, as well as for global governance by
creating crisis situations of biological nature,” Kirillov warned.
According to the Russian State media outlet RT,
Moscow believes there was collusion between Big Pharma and USAID
through the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based non-government organization
run by Peter Daszak, to develop new strains of coronavirus.
“The intermediary organization EcoHealth Alliance has played a key
role in implementing projects to study this pathogen. Since 2015, the
organization’s researchers have been involved in studying a diverse
population of bats, searching for new coronavirus strains and mechanisms
for animal-to-human transmission. Over 2,500 bats have been studied,”
Kirillov stated.
The general brought up the troubling fact that the World Health
Organization, Gates Foundation, and Johns Hopkins University conducted
the Event 201
drills in New York on October 18, 2019, just two months before the
first COVID-19 cases were officially reported in China. The ostensive
purpose of the exercise was to practice the steps that would be taken
during a coronavirus outbreak, but many people believe it was a
“practice run” for the pandemic.
“The fact that the pandemic unfolded exactly according to this
scenario, as well as the implementation of EcoHealth Alliance’s
projects, gives rise to questions as to whether COVID-19 was in fact an
intentionally man-made disease and whether the US may have had a hand in
this incident,” Kirillov said.
Kirillov also expressed deep concern that the Biden regime’s new
Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy is up to no good.
“The United States’ next step, aimed at pushing ahead with its
strategic plans for establishing global control over the biological
situation, was the creation of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and
Response Policy. This new agency is expected to be responsible for
charting a course and coordinating actions to combat known and unknown
biological challenges, including pathogens that might trigger another
global emergency,” Kirillov said.
A Foundation of Joy
-
Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
-
Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
