Seems There's Some Non-IQ-75 Opposition To Endlessly Funding Ukro-Nazism

WaPo |  But Massie — an engineer who graduated with several degrees from M.I.T. and became an inventor who still holds a number of patents — has devoted time and energy to honing his America First views during five terms in the House.

“I’m further, I think, than he is on the issue of NATO. He demanded that the partners pay their share. I would withdraw us from NATO,” Massie explained of his and Trump’s views toward the critical alliance. “It’s a Cold War relic. Our involvement should have ceased when the [Berlin] wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed.”

Inside the Republican drift away from supporting the NATO alliance

He would have preemptively surrendered portions of eastern Ukraine to Russia in a manner that would have “avoided tens of thousands of people dying,” because this is how he sees the war ending anyway.

“A fractured Ukraine, with the Eastern portion of it being a satellite or more government, more deferential to Putin, and the Western part of it more deferential to Europe or the United States,” Massie said.

These views are anathema to traditional Republican hawks as well as Democrats in line with Biden, who push for a vigorous foreign policy that works to unify allies, particularly in Europe.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have at different times in history had a more isolationist, nativist wing,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “Right now, it’s the Republicans who are highest on that. They’re playing a very isolationist card.”

“Honestly there is an isolationist wing within the party that’s traditionally been there,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Smith takes a more optimistic outlook, focusing on how more than 70 percent of House Republicans supported the latest Ukraine aid package and that on other votes, Massie and Greene have had few allies.

“Pretty much everybody else understands that this isn’t just about Ukraine. It is about our security and peace and stability in the world. So thus far the Republican Party is still there,” Smith said.

McCaul has actually been pleasantly surprised that the anti-Ukraine faction has not grown larger, something he attributes to the success on the ground of Ukrainian troops and the atrocities committed by Putin’s troops.

“I was really worried, interestingly, earlier on about how this was going to trend,” McCaul said Friday.

What Valodya Is Doing Right'Chere Is What Got Qaddafi Killed....,

The U.S. Saudi-Libya Deal 

Libya and the Holy Triumvirate

A Million Libyans Rally In Support of Qaddafi 

Panama Papers: Where is Qaddafi's Money and Libya's Gold?

Colonial Libyan Carve-Up Council Met In Paris 

NATO Just Destroyed Africa's Most Developed Country

RT  |  The Bank of Russia has resumed gold purchases this week, but more importantly, the regulator is doing so at a fixed price of 5,000 rubles ($59) per 1 gram between March 28 and June 30, raising the possibility of Russia returning to the gold standard for the first time in over a century.

If the country takes the next step, as has been proposed this week, to sell its commodities priced in rubles, these combined moves could have huge implications for the ruble, the US dollar, and the global economy.

To get some answers, RT spoke to precious metals analyst Ronan Manly at BullionStar Singapore.

— Why is setting a fixed price for gold in rubles significant?

By offering to buy gold from Russian banks at a fixed price of 5,000 rubles per gram, the Bank of Russia has both linked the ruble to gold and, since gold trades in US dollars, set a floor price for the ruble in terms of the US dollar.

We can see this linkage in action since Friday 25 March when the Bank of Russia made the fixed price announcement. The ruble was trading at around 100 to the US dollar at that time, but has since strengthened and is nearing 80 to the US dollar. Why? Because gold has been trading on international markets at about US$62 per gram which is equivalent to (5,000 / 62) = about 80.5, and markets and arbitrage traders have now taken note, driving the RUB/USD exchange rate higher.

So the ruble now has a floor to the US dollars, in terms of gold. But gold also has a floor, so to speak, because 5,000 rubles per gram is 155,500 rubles per troy ounce of gold, and with a RUB/USD floor of about 80, that’s a gold price of around $1,940. And if the Western paper gold markets of LBMA/COMEX try to drive the US dollar gold price lower, they will have to try to weaken the ruble as well or else the paper manipulations will be out in the open.

Additionally, with the new gold to ruble linkage, if the ruble continues to strengthen (for example due to demand created by obligatory energy payments in rubles), this will also be reflected in a stronger gold price.

— What does it mean for oil?

Russia is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and the world’s third largest oil exporter. We are seeing right now that Putin is demanding that foreign buyers (importers of Russian gas) must pay for this natural gas using rubles. This immediately links the price of natural gas to rubles and (because of the fixed link to gold) to the gold price. So Russian natural gas is now linked via the ruble to gold.

The same can now be done with Russian oil. If Russia begins to demand payment for oil exports with rubles, there will be an immediate indirect peg to gold (via the fixed price ruble – gold connection). Then Russia could begin accepting gold directly in payment for its oil exports. In fact, this can be applied to any commodities, not just oil and natural gas.

— What does that mean for the price of gold?

By playing both sides of the equation, i.e. linking the ruble to gold and then linking energy payments to the ruble, the Bank of Russia and the Kremlin are fundamentally altering the entire working assumptions of the global trade system while accelerating change in the global monetary system. This wall of buyers in search of physical gold to pay for real commodities could certainly torpedo and blow up the paper gold markets of the LBMA and COMEX.         

The fixed peg between the ruble and gold puts a floor on the RUB/USD rate but also a quasi-floor on the US dollar gold price. But beyond this, the linking of gold to energy payments is the main event. While increased demand for rubles should continue to strengthen the RUB/USD rate and show up as a higher gold price, due to the fixed ruble - gold linkage, if Russia begins to accept gold directly as a payment for oil, then this would be a new paradigm shift for the gold price as it would link the oil price directly to the gold price.  

John Robb Has Interesting Opinions About Karen vs. Russia

 

We've entered unprecedented times.

We're witnessing a global networked open source war against a nuclear state.

The network has no mortality, no morality, no proportionality, no sense of justice and is 100% maximalist.

It can not provide an off ramp for this conflict.

— Jack Murphy⚡️ (@jackmurphylive) March 7, 2022

Does The West Err In Imagining Russians Want To Be Degenerate Consumers Too?

turcopolier  |  Putin’s target is just as much domestic constituencies as it is the West, perhaps more so. The aim is to force Russia’s Western-leaning élites into line – and that includes the Central Bank. A total rift with the West was never going to be possible otherwise. This way he presents the split as a fait accompli and all patriots will be expected to get behind his policies. If it is successful Putin will go down in history as one of the most brilliant statesmen of all time. Judo is most certainly at play in nailing shut the door. 

For example, our sanctions on the oligarchs who stash their wealth outside the country ought to help repatriate some of that wealth to Russia. The ones who choose to stay abroad Russia does not want anyhow. Putin sees this as a civilizational war, with Russian civilization incompatible with increasingly degenerate Western values. 

My perspective is Russia is being enormously strengtened by the current reaction of the West, the same way it happened in 1941. It is a huge miscalculation and is not good.

I’m from Eastern Europe – a native Bulgarian and I also know Russian because I studied in school at the times of the Soviet Union. We are probably culturally closer to Russians than even Ukrainians in some aspects.

In the Eastern Ortodoxy doctrine, the closer to the truth you are, the closer you are to God. That means the beliefs are not oriented towards commercial success, like in the Protestant world for example, where hard work will get you closer to heaven. Only doing the right thing will grant you a path to heaven, and if you need to be poor, then so be it. Even though releigion is not something significant today, it has shaped the mind of the whole Eastern Ortodox civilization. And what it means in practice is news about markets and inflation and poverty are having much smaller effect on Russians than what Westerners think. Of course Russians are worried about inflation and price rises – but at the same time they pride themselves because of doing the right thing, and this is stronger. The recent sharp increase in Putin’s rating confirms that – no amount of misery will stop such minded people when they beleive they are on the right path.

Unlike the West, where the Law defines public truth, in the Eastern Ortodoxy it is not the Law, but your own feeling of righteousness. If the law is against your gut feeling, it is not something you generally need to do. Hence the chaos and lack of strict rule of law in the whole Eastern Ortodox world – from parking & driving, to personal quarrels. The West sees this as some form of corruption, which it is not – it is just people beleiving in their own righteousness, not in the righteousness of the law . By the way, Geoffrey of Villehardouin “On the Conquest of Constantinople” says basically the same, and he has written his book in 1204. That is in essence the dilemma of the East, the ruler is expected to be a saint, and when he is not, people are allowed to follow their own judgement.

So what is happening now is Russians are rallying around their leader and are getting enormously dedicated to destroy the “unjust” and “unrighteous”. Nuclear war is a very real option unless the West doesn’t ease tensions – it is really obvious to me. In the Russian collective mind, Realpolitic that was played was heresy.

N.B. I’m not pro-Russian – there is ambivalent relationship between us and the Russians. Going back in history, we gave them the Cyrilic alphabet (sponsored by Bulgarian king), our monks brought Ortodox Christianity there (not Byzantines, it was Bulgarians like St Cyprian that converted our wild Northern cousins in the middle ages; “Old church slavonic” is the same as “Old Bulgarian” ). In their turn they liberated us from the Ottomans, but wanted to turn us into Russians which we really hated, and then they unsuccessfully attacked us in WW1 and occupied us after WW2. I’m just saying they see things differently and I’m trying to give a perspective.

Russians are done with the West. They regard the US especially as breakers of their word, hence, untrustworthy (“agreement-incapable”), without honor, and morally degenerate”. Even Russian liberals like Medvedev are reversing course away from the West.

We can surmise that the Chinese have a similar take, but they were never Western-oriented like the Russian liberals anyway. People in the West, and in the US especially, don’t know that a core issue for Russia in the Ukraine matter is neo-Nazism because this has been suppressed in the narrative in the US. They are not kidding when they say this is about de-Nazification and bring to justice those guilty of “genocide” in Donbass, where over 10, 000 Russian Ukrainians have been killed by the Azov Battalion forces, who view Russians as Untermenschen.

 

 

If Canada's Not On The Brink Of Civil War, Why The Trudeau Emergency Act?

Slate  |   Your chapter on “The Fall of New York” focuses on threat multipliers for instability – economic, climate, property. Part of me wonders if part of the Canadian protest – in a country known for being almost smugly civil and polite and law abiding – is just a growing recognition that stuff is broken, governments are bankrupt, the climate is an existential threat, and that institutions are not up to the task of repair. I guess what I am asking is, when lawful Canadians are boiling over, is it a sign that the conditions you identified in the U.S. are in fact worldwide?

There is no question that the Trucker Convoy is the toxic American political environment spilling across our border. I mean, its biggest supporters, by far, have been Donald Trump and Elon Musk. But when you say Canadians are boiling over, we’re talking about a few thousand Canadians boiling over. And who can blame them? I mean, honestly, I sympathize with the frustrations of these truckers. I’m sick of this Covid shit, too. It makes me want to go to a major city in a piece of machinery and blare the horn too. But I don’t think the Trucker Convoy is anywhere near as significant as Jan. 6, and not simply because it happened in Canada! It’s a temper tantrum. And everyone in the country is disgusted by the temper tantrum. But it’s not much more than that.

So in a way, you’re saying that even this Canadian event is somehow more revealing about what’s going on in America than in Canada?

There is political insanity everywhere. That’s not unique to America. The question is how ready the systems are to deal with the insanity. Covid happened everywhere. It was brutal everywhere. It led to political unrest everywhere. But it was vastly more toxic, and more divisive, in America than elsewhere. That’s true about much more than Covid. For example, during the tour for this book, I’ve been asked how much social media is driving America’s toxic politics. Of course, it does have an impact but look at the rest of the world. They’ve all had to deal with Facebook too. But they didn’t have their entire political apparatus disrupted. German political parties entered into a “gentleman’s agreement” not to spread foreign misinformation. Which would never be possible in the United States today.

America is ripe for conflict in a way that Canada simply isn’t. The forces that cause civil war are manifesting in the States. The legitimacy of its institutions are in decline, its legal system is increasingly partisan, inequality is exploding, and climate change is starting to manifest in direct destruction. These are the subjects of The Next Civil War.

I get the sense you’re not as anxious about all this as, well, like, me?

The truckers actually entered my neighborhood in Toronto yesterday. I went to check it out. They certainly disgusted me. But later, on my way home, I saw them shopping on my block. They marveled at all the pot shops and fancy bakeries. Their trip to the big city.

Successful Protest: Funding, Strategy, Discipline, Event Planning And Diverse Popular Support

NYTimes |  What messaging discipline exists comes from the early public face of the effort, Ms. Lich, said Jay Hill, the interim leader of the Maverick Party, a small right-of-center group based out of Calgary, Alberta, created to promote the separation of Canada’s three western Prairie Provinces from the rest of the country. Ms. Lich has deep ties to the group.

Even before the convoy assembled, its messaging was Ms. Lich’s preoccupation, according to Mr. Hill, who said she called him several times even before arriving in Ottawa to strategize.

“We had a number of discussions about staying on message, about the need in this modern-day world of politics to have a very clearly defined message that is understandable and simple, a message that people can grasp hold of and run with,” he said. “Tamara clearly understands that.”

Ms. Lich played a leading role in organizing a GoFundMe campaign for the protests that raised $7.8 million before the crowdfunding site shut it down after receiving “police reports of violence and other unlawful activity,” GoFundMe said.

Previously, Ms. Lich worked as a personal trainer in Medicine Hat, Alberta, a town once dubbed “Hell’s Basement,” by Rudyard Kipling for its location on top of huge natural gas field.

Zach Smithson, an employee at Body Building Depot Fitness Emporium, where Ms. Lich used to work, said she has since become the talk of the town.

“I think we are all very proud of her,” he said.

Ms. Lich did not respond to a call and text message requesting an interview.

B.J. Dichter, an official spokesman for the convoy, said he joined the effort after Ms. Lich sought help managing the swell of donations flowing into a GoFundMe page. Mr. Dichter has a history of spouting anti-Islamist views and once said that “political Islam” is “rotting away at our society like syphilis.” He has rejected claims of racism.

“I’m Jewish,” he told the journalist Rupa Subramanya. “I have family in mass graves in Europe. And apparently I’m a white supremacist.”

Within the occupiers’ tightly managed ground operations, there are military hallmarks, outlined and executed by the several higher-ups who have backgrounds in the armed forces and law enforcement, according to Mr. Marazzo. He said he spent 25 years in the military, and with his measured tones he is frequently deployed as the spokesman for the group.

“This was a grass-roots convoy that just left their homes and headed for Ottawa,” said Mr. Marazzo, a former instructor at Georgian College in Ontario who added that he was fired because of his anti-vaccine beliefs. “They’ve deployed to the field without really knowing who our commanding officers were, who were the platoon commander, and who were the captains — That was a team effort.”

 

Freedom Is Dangerous - (Ironically Under The Guardian's Old Comment Is Free Banner)

theguardian |  “Freedom” protests similar in form and simultaneously nebulous in broadly anti-vax/anti-mandate political goals have materialised in Britain, France and New Zealand. A convoy claiming to originate from across Europe is making its way towards Brussels. An ongoing gathering that locals alternately describe as “Spring Break for QAnon” or “Camp Covid” is encamped outside Australian Parliament House in Canberra.

Across these countries, protestors appear as a wild herd of “sovcit”, anti-vaxxer, QAnonner and more nefarious fellow travellers, alongside some more ordinary people. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether social media content about these events has been gathered by extremism monitors, or comedians.

Participants unwilling to be injected with a free vaccine safely used on hundreds of millions of people further advise each other that drinking one’s own wee is curative and somehow “camel urine deals with cancer”. Monitors observe attendees costumed as paramedics, pilots and deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Someone really wears a tinfoil hat.

In New Zealand, the monitors themselves hijacked the Telegram and Zello channels the protestors use to organise. They’ve sown chaos and crammed the convoy’s Spotify playlist with songs like Redneck Piece of White Trash, Why Don’t You Get a Job and Dumb Fuck.

In Canada, protestors have used their vehicles to blockade entire Ottawa neighbourhoods, erecting jumping castles and even saunas. Participants stiffly stage ceremonies to anoint one another faux powers of police. Amid the carnival of crank it all reads like character-based black comedy … but this investment in a parallel reality is not satire. It’s not performance. It’s complete. It’s terrifying.

Wherever this “freedom movement” manifests, a similar cast of characters emerges. Light-in-the-eyes zealots holler conspiracy theories. Grifters solicit to camera like a roll of tabloid clickbait. Burly, closed-mouth types appear to be handling secretive logistics. Around them are impassioned, often inarticulate – and poorly-costumed – clowns.

Don’t let the ridiculousness distract from the threat.

I spent a year undercover in the broadly QAnon movement researching a book; I understand well why democratic citizens may struggle to take seriously the crossed streams of alien lizard aficionados, drink-your-own-wee health enthusiasts and those people who believe democrats eat children’s faces. Even while besieged in his capital and struggling to contain the protests, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau hasn’t yet called in the army; he’s made the point that in more than 80%-vaxxed Canada, those protesting vaccine mandates are indeed a “fringe” – the truckers aren’t backed by their unions, more than 90% of their industry is vaccinated. The tomfoolery in Canberra could not be considered a representative movement of Australians either. Like New Zealanders and the Europeans, we’re a country with a high vaccination rate too.

 

Freedom Convoy Has Tactics And Strategy Informed By Police And Military Training

cbc  |  For nearly two weeks anti-vaccine mandate demonstrators and their big rigs have entrenched themselves in Ottawa's parliamentary district and its neighbourhoods.

Despite a strategic strike by police to cut off supplies to truckers encamped in the city's downtown core, protesters appear to still have the upper hand on police. 

It's a success that experts partly attribute to the deep knowledge of law enforcement and military tactics that exist in the convoy's organizational structure.

The group Police on Guard, formed during the pandemic, has endorsed the truck convoy. On its website, it publicly identifies more than 150 mostly retired police officers who are against government-imposed public health measures, such as vaccine mandates. More than 50 former Canadian Forces soldiers are also named on its site.

The organization says it has "boots on the ground" in Ottawa and has linked to YouTube videos of its members participating in the protest.

Furthermore, the leadership team for the protesters calling themselves the Freedom Convoy includes:  

• Daniel Bulford, a former RCMP officer who was on the prime minister's security detail. He quit last year after refusing to get the vaccine and is the convoy's head of security.

• Tom Quiggin, a former military intelligence officer who also worked with the RCMP and was considered one of the country's top counter-terrorism experts.

Tom Marazzo, an ex-military officer who, according to his LinkedIn profile, served in the Canadian Forces for 25 years and now works as a freelance software developer. 

The leaders of the Freedom Convoy refuse to be interviewed by journalists unless they consider them friendly to their cause, and CBC News has been barred from their media conferences. In a video posted from one of those news conferences posted on social media, Quiggin gives his assessment of the political and police response in Ottawa, which he calls "the opposition." 

"I would say the opposition at this point doesn't actually have a strategy. They have a sort of weak goal and that they want the streets cleared, but they have no real idea how they want to get there," he said.

In the video, Quiggin says that during his tenure at the RCMP, he worked with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET). INSET was created to thwart terror threats following 9/11 and includes top officials from CSIS, Canada's spy agency, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and municipal police forces.

It's unclear what Quiggin's role at INSET was at the time.

In that same video, he referenced the blockades at the border crossing in Coutts, Alta., and parallel protests in Toronto, Quebec City and Sarnia.

Trudeau's Empty Threats - Freedom Truckers Still On The Ambassador Bridge

dailymail  | Freedom Convoy truckers are STILL on US-Canada bridge after both a 7 pm court AND midnight deadline from Ontario police to forcibly remove them came and went

• Freedom Convoy truckers are still on the US-Canada Ambassador Bridge - in defiance of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's 7pm and then midnight deadlines to clear the road on Friday
• Protesters blocking the busiest land border in North America - the bridge between Detroit and Windsor -  refused to leave, despite a Canadian judge on Friday evening granting an injunction against their presence
• Ottawa police were on the scene with threats to forcibly remove the truckers who have been blocking the busy bridge for days
• But the big showdown never came as police declined to move in on the hundreds of protesters milling around on the comparatively mild 38 degrees Fahrenheit evening
• Police patrol cars were parked with their lights flashing, but few officers were visible. 
• Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Friday declared a state of emergency, threatening fines and jail 
• US group 'Convoy to Save America' is launching convoys from Nashville and New York City this weekend
  

Brandon Says "Every Single One Of YOU Chatty Busters Is A Terrorist Threat!"

alexberenson |  The White House has begun an extraordinary assault on free speech in America. It is no longer content merely to force social media companies to suppress dissenting views. It appears to be setting the stage to use federal police powers.

How else to read the “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” the Department of Homeland Security issued on Monday? Its first sentence:

SUMMARY OF THE TERRORISM THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES: The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories... [emphasis added]

You read those words right.

The government now says “misleading narratives” are the most dangerous contributor to terrorism against the United States.

The bulletin’s next sentence:

These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence. [emphasis added]

You read those words right too.

A federal agency says that to “undermine public trust in government institutions” is now considered terrorism. Speech doesn’t even have to encourage rebellion or violence generally, much less against anyone specific. It just has to “potentially inspire” violence.

Potentially.

Later, the bulletin explains exactly what speech the government now considers a terrorist danger:

Widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19.

There’s that word misleading again.

Who’s defining “misleading”? Misleading to whom? Misleading how?

DHS February 2022 bulletin

—

I have no doubt whatsoever that I fit as a terrorist threat under these guidelines.

So does Joe Rogan. And Tucker Carlson. After all, we’ve “undermine[d] public trust in government institutions” about Covid and the mRNA shots (I try not to call them vaccines anymore).

This bulletin marks an extraordinary escalation of the war on speech and the First Amendment.

People's Convoy To Washington DC Gathers Steam...,

politico  |  Organizers have dubbed their movement "the People's Convoy" and say they are working with two groups — Freedom Fighter Nation and Restore Liberty — whose founders are closely tied to right wing politics, based on POLITICO's review of social media and online records.

That includes Leigh Dundas, a California lawyer and founder of the Freedom Fighter Nation, who gave a speech on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots calling for Trump supporters to kill those whom she claimed had aided foreign governments in undermining the 2020 presidential election, based on a video posted on Twitter.

"A lot of this has worrying parallels to the build-up to the Jan. 6 riots," said Ciaran O'Connor, an analyst for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online extremism and which has been following the global protests. "It's concerning how this may play out if they get to D.C."

The goal of the U.S. convoy is to push back at vaccine and mask mandates — messages that have been repeated widely by right wing politicians and supporters since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.

In communication channels on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, anonymous social media users have railed to tens of thousands of channel members against the alleged Covid-19 oversteps of President Joe Biden's administration and shared videos and other posts from the Canadian truckers' convoy to boost support for similar action in the U.S.

It is unclear if, or when, the U.S. convoy will reach Washington, though within these encrypted messaging channels, supporters routinely offer food, supplies and other logistical support, based on POLITICO's review of the online discussions.

After GoFundMe, the crowdfunding site, removed the fundraising page for the Canadian convoy, far-right influencers like Jack Posobiec shared links via their large social media followings to alternative funding sites. A similar page on GiveSendGo — a rival crowdfunding site frequented by the far right — has so far raised $7.2 million out of a goal of $16 million.

The California-to-Washington protest is not the only anti-mandate convoy that has sprung up to mirror the ongoing mobilization in Canada.

On Feb. 14, similar protests from across the European Union are expected to descend on Brussels — home to the bloc's main political institutions — to rally against mask and vaccine mandates as the region continues to struggle to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Pompous, Overweening, Canadian Fascist Elites Have Created A Situation They Can't Control...,

thefederalist  |  News media in both Canada and the United States have worked hard to portray the protesters as far-right conspiracy theorists and white supremacists, despite little evidence that the protests are motivated by anything other than sincere opposition to Covid vaccine mandates. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, taking his cues from the press, last week condemned the protests as an “insult to memory and truth,” and implied they were motivated not by objections to vaccine mandates but by racial animus. Canada’s conservative politicians seem divided and rudderless, unable to provide the protesters a voice or meaningful support, let alone a legitimate democratic outlet for their grievances.

The situation, in short, is a powder keg. There are no clear off-ramps for the protesters, and no one in a position of authority seems to know how to deescalate the situation. Having accepted the Canadian media’s near-uniform portrayal of the protesters as racists and bigots, it’s unlikely Trudeau’s government will be willing to compromise. What happens next is anybody’s guess, but it will likely involve violent clashes between police and protesters.

How did this happen? The idea that the Canadian capital would become the site of such a standoff in 2022 seems frankly unbelievable. But the chaos now unfolding in Ottawa can be traced directly to the harsh treatment of unvaccinated Canadians by their government over the past six months or so.

It’s true that Canadians have largely embraced the Covid vaccines, with a vaccination rate of about 85 percent nationwide, and large majorities also support vaccine passports and say they don’t trust the unvaccinated. But this has given Canadian political and media elites cover to threaten the unvaccinated in what often seems a gleeful tone.

As my friend David Agren has reported, Canada’s federal jobs minister in October stated bluntly — and without a hint of sympathy — that Canadians fired for not getting the vaccine would also lose their unemployment insurance. Indeed, threatening the livelihoods of the unvaccinated, or threatening to tax them, has become commonplace for Canadian government officials at the federal and provincial levels. 

However, a significant minority of Canadians are staunchly opposed to getting the vaccine, and likely won’t get it no matter what the government threatens to do to them. The unwillingness or inability on the part of Trudeau to compromise with these holdouts has arguably precipitated the current stand-off in Ottawa. Some, like Canadian pollster John Wright, have been warning of this outcome for some time now. Over the weekend, Wright noted that even if only one out of 10 Canadians refuse to get the vaccine, that’s still a major problem.

Are Protestors With Semi Tractor Trailers Sufficiently Organized And Funded To Hold Firm And Prevail?

france24  |  An occupation of Canada's capital by truckers opposed to vaccine mandates gained steam as it entered its second week on Saturday, with more demonstrators piling onto the clogged streets of Ottawa, while protests kicked off in several other cities.

In the capital, protesters huddled around campfires in bone-chilling temperatures and erected bouncy castles for kids outside Parliament, while waving Canadian flags and shouting anti-government slogans.

The atmosphere appeared more festive than a week earlier, when several protesters waved Confederate flags and Nazi symbols and clashed with locals.

Police, who were out in force and put up barriers overnight to limit vehicle access to the city center, said they were bracing for up to 2,000 protesters -- as well as 1,000 counterprotesters -- to join hundreds of truckers already jamming Ottawa streets.

But organizers of the so-called Freedom Convoy told AFP they expected their numbers to swell into the tens of thousands.

Similar protests were happening in Toronto, Quebec City and Winnipeg. And in southern Alberta province, truckers blocked a major border crossing to the US state of Montana.

"This remains an increasingly volatile and increasingly dangerous demonstration," Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly told a news conference Friday.

With public anger rising -- thousands of residents have complained of harassment by protesters, and an online petition demanding action has drawn 40,000 signatures -- Sloly vowed to crack down on what he called an "unlawful" occupation of the city.

But he offered no timeline.

MOAR Censorship PUH-LEEZ!!!!

taibbi |  Censors have a fantasy that if they get rid of all the Berensons and Mercolas and Malones, and rein in people like Joe Rogan, that all the holdouts will suddenly rush to get vaccinated. The opposite is true. If you wipe out critics, people will immediately default to higher levels of suspicion. They will now be sure there’s something wrong with the vaccine. If you want to convince audiences, you have to allow everyone to talk, even the ones you disagree with. You have to make a better case. The Substack people, thank God, still get this, but the censor’s disease of thinking there are shortcuts to trust is spreading.

Lastly, while the Post certainly has its own problems in this area, the Guardian editors should puke with shame for even thinking about condemning anyone else’s “misinformation,” while their own fake story about Assange’s “secret talks” with Paul Manafort in the Ecuadorian embassy remains up. Leaving an obvious hoax uncorrected will tend to create a credibility problem, and you compound it by pointing a finger elsewhere. There is a lesson in this for health authorities, too. Clean your own houses, and maybe you won’t have such a hard time being believed. 

I’ve used Substack to show the amazingly diverse range of speech deemed unallowable on private platforms, from raw footage of both anti-Trump protests and the January 6th riots, to satirical videos no one had even seen yet, to advocates and detractors of the medication Ivermectin, to a Jewish tweeter’s pictorial account of Hitler’s life, to a now proven-true expose about the president’s son. The latter case is on point, because the widely distributed story that the New York Post’s Hunter Biden report was Russian disinformation was the actual disinformation. If the fact-checkers are themselves untrustworthy, and you can’t get around the fact-checkers, that’s when you’re really screwed.

This puts the issue of the reliability of authorities front and center, which is the main problem with pandemic messaging. One does not need to be a medical expert to see that the FDA, CDC, the NIH, as well as the White House (both under Biden and Trump) have all been untruthful, or wrong, or inconsistent, about a spectacular range of issues in the last two years.

 

Corporate Government Mommies And Daddies Aren't Going To Save You

ianwelsh  |  In face of a failed society, trust in leaders is insane. Crazed. They’ve obviously run society off a cliff, and they either are OK with that or are incompetent, or both. (And the smart ones are selling you that everything is OK while they sprint for the lifeboats: aka. New Zealand.)

For over 10 years now I’ve been telling Americans to get out. Oh, it’s not that America’s the only developed nation heading for failed state, for all intents and purposes there are no exceptions, not even Sainted New Zealand, but America’s one of the leaders (Britain’s another) and I have a lot of American readers. If you’re going to have everything go sideways into a propeller, better later than sooner.

But most Americans won’t or can’t get out, and Musk and Bezo’s dreams of escape to space aren’t going to happen for humanity en-masse: not in time.

We’re all in a big ship, it’s going down. Some areas are already underwater, others will be soon and the entire thing is going to sink.

And we have no lifeboats. We could, perhaps,  have built some, if we’d started 30 to 40 years ago with massive investments, but we didn’t, and if our leaders were that able, they’d have been able to save the ship, since that’s when they had to act.

But this article isn’t about “we are fucked”, it’s about “too many of us refuse to admit it and that it means we need radical change.”

And one of the big reasons for this is the need for daddy. One of the big hurdles to radicalization is that it means you can’t trust your leaders at all. That they have fucked up, betrayed, or both. That they are bad, evil people who not only aren’t acting in your interest, but are your enemies.

I’ve been pounding this issue for a couple  years, and some regular readers are probably sick of it. I am.

But it matters. If you don’t accept, psychologically and intellectually, who your enemies are, you can’t protect yourself from them. If you don’t accept, psychologically and intellectually, that your leaders are your enemies, you can’t properly take action on your own, with friends, family and other groups because at some level you’re still thinking that government or corporations will come thru and take care of.

All your life government and corporations have taken care of you. They’ve often been abusive parents, but they have made sure there’s food available to buy, streets to walk and drive on, laws, jobs, etc, etc… They run almost everything and you’re dependent on them for almost everything just like  you were dependent on your parents and teachers when you were a child.

Bad parents still feed and house you. They’re monsters, but monsters who kept you alive. Children love their abusive parents even as they fear and hate them, and the same screwed up psychology pertains to business and government leaders and those they lead.

An entire life’s conditioning works against radicalization in anyone for whom the system has even slightly worked.

But the fact of the matter is that if we want to handle climate change and environmental collapse and all our other problems (handle doesn’t mean stop, but many problems are essentially trivial and can be fixed any time our leadership wants to, like health care or spam calls) means we need radical change. We need to change our system completely and we need to entirely get rid of our current leadership class, who have proved their incompetence and ill will.

That’s radical. That’s a leap.

Defeat The Mandates Gathering In Washington DC - WATCH LIVE NOW

 January 23 March on Washington

  The over 17,000 signers of the declaration will be represented on Sunday, January 23, when Dr. Malone stands with fellow doctors and scientists on stage in Washington DC, as part of the Defeat the Mandates march Sunday, January 23, 2022. At the Lincoln Memorial, they will be joined by a wide range of featured guests for a series of inspiring talks and musical performances. Join us!

 About the Global COVID Summit

 Global Covid Summit is the product of an international alliance of doctors and scientists, committed to speaking truth to power about Covid pandemic research and treatment.

 Thousands have died from Covid as a result of being denied life-saving early treatment. The Declaration is a battle cry from physicians who are daily fighting for the right to treat their patients, and the right of patients to receive those treatments - without fear of interference, retribution or censorship by government, pharmacies, pharmaceutical corporations, and big tech. We demand that these groups step aside and honor the sanctity and integrity of the patient- physician relationship, the fundamental maxim "First Do No Harm", and the freedom of patients and physicians to make informed medical decisions. Lives depend on it. More information here: https://globalCovidSummit.org 

Watch Live Now

Texas Federal Judge Blocks Brandon From Enforcing Federal Vaxnation Mandate

I listened to Fauci, Stephane Bancel (Moderna), Annalies Wilder-Smith, and Richard Hatchett discuss the future of covid at Klaus Schwab's WEF yesterday. Here are my notes. 🧵1/https://t.co/NvyMBrlzfy

— Laura (@_Iaura_) January 18, 2022

courtlistener | The plaintiffs have moved the court to preliminarily enjoin the enforcement of two executive orders by the President. The first, Executive Order 14042, is already the subject of a nationwide injunction. Because that injunction protects the plaintiffs from imminent harm, the court declines to enjoin the first order. The second, Executive Order 14043, amounts to a presidential mandate that all federal employees consent to vaccination against COVID-19 or lose their jobs. Because the President’s authority is not that broad, the court will enjoin the second order’s enforcement.

The court notes at the outset that this case is not about whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID-19—the court believes they should. It is not even about the federal government’s power, exercised properly, to mandate vaccination of its employees. It is instead about whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment. That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.

Danish Ekstra Bladet Apologizes For Being An Uncritical Covid Sock Puppet...,

ekstrabladet  |  For ALMOST  two years, we - the press and the population - have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities' daily coronatal.

WE HAVE STARED  at the oscillations of the number pendulum when it came to infected, hospitalized and died with corona. And we've got the meaning of the pendulum's smallest movements laid out by experts, politicians and authorities, who have constantly warned us about the dormant corona monster under our beds. A monster just waiting for us to fall asleep so it can strike in the gloom and darkness of the night.

THE CONSTANT  mental alertness has worn off tremendously on all of us. That is why we - the press - must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed.

WE HAVE NOT  been wax enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now.

IT IS OF COURSE  first and foremost the authorities who are responsible for informing the population correctly, accurately and honestly. The figures for how many are sick and died of corona should, for obvious reasons, have been published long ago, so we got the clearest picture of the monster under the bed.

IN ALL  , the messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired. And therefore they lie as they have ridden when parts of the population lose confidence in them.

ANOTHER  example: The vaccines are consistently referred to as our 'superweapon'. And our hospitals are called 'superhospitals'. Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a super-weapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries.

IN OTHER  WORDS, there is something here that does not deserve the term 'super'. Whether it's the vaccines, the hospitals, or a mixture of it all, is every man's bid. But at least the authorities' communication to the population in no way deserves the term 'super'. On the contrary.

Today's Must Read: Physicians Amicus Briefing To The U.S. Supreme Court

supremecourt.gov | 31 pages, 25 pages are very plain language, concise, and cover succinctly what many hear have read, heard, and seen over the past 2 plus years.

“It is the consensus of the medical community that the currently available Covid-19 vaccine injections do not prevent the spread of SARS- CoV-2. Relevant federal agencies have repeatedly acknowledged this consensus. Therefore, there is no scientific or legal justification for OSHA to segregate injected and un-injected people. Indeed, since the Covid-19 injections do not confer immunity upon the recipients, but are claimed to merely reduce the symptoms of the disease, they do not fall within the long-established definition of a vaccine at all. ”

Rogan Also Testing The Limits Of Google's Power To Control Discourse

thefreethoughtproject |  Those paying attention to the current situation regarding the establishment’s control on the narrative around Covid-19, have watched as anyone — including esteemed experts in the field — are censored into oblivion for attempting to put forth information that challenges the status quo. For the first time in recent American history, merely talking about alternative treatments for a disease is met with mass censorship by big tech. This is diametrically opposed to actual “science” and the opposite direction in which a free society should be moving.

One of the people who has been censored the most is Robert W Malone MD, MS who is one of the inventors of mRNA & DNA vaccines. Dr. Malone has been outspoken about the way the establishment system is handling, or rather mishandling, the covid crisis.

His Twitter account had grown to over a half million followers last week before the platform decided that his alternative views on the pandemic were a danger to the narrative. So they banned him.

Instead of standing up for the free exchange of ideas by experts — which is how science works  — the left cheered for Malone’s censorship, calling him a kook while celebrating the tools of tyrants.

Before Donald Trump came into office and caused mass hysteria over Russia, the left used to stand for freedom of speech. However, the flamboyant tyrant in the White House quickly eroded their respect for rights. Then, in 2020, Covid-19 arrived and the censorship campaign switched into overdrive.

The left — armed with their militant “fact checkers” whose opinions are wielded like swords against anyone who challenges the official narrative — became the regime of authoritarian information controllers. After all, if you challenge their messiahs like Dr. Fauci, you challenge science itself — facts be damned.

So what happened? Why did the left go from championing free speech for years — even supporting the speech of neo-nazis — to rabidly demanding the silencing of those who attempt to challenge team doom? Dr. Malone and others have a theory, and it’s called mass formation psychosis.

“When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere,” explained Malone on a recent interview with Joe Rogan.

Malone then described how “leaders” can exploit this situation: “And one of the aspects of that phenomenon is that the people that they identify as their leaders, the ones typically that come in and say you have this pain and I can solve it for you. I and I alone. Then they will follow that person. It doesn’t matter whether they lied to them or whatever. The data is irrelevant.”