Name Stealer Scientology One Helluva Drug: Bankman-Fried And Zelensky Not Going To Jail....,

He didn't make the mistakes his predecessor Bernie Madoff made. 

1. He took great care to buy off the regime in power, acting as their bagman for the Ukro-Khazarian money laundering scheme. 

Maxine Waters just blew @SBF_FTX a kiss. Safe to say that went well.😘 pic.twitter.com/C8I90fdmqW

— chochaymon (@ElliottFryback) December 8, 2021

2. He took great care not to rip off his Khazarian co-religionists, who wield outsize influence in America (to the point where an outsider might legitimately assume it is an almost entirely Zionist country). 

And, of course, he must have a substantial amount of blackmail information about Bidencorp's Ukrainian money laundering scheme. 

He's either going to be allowed to flee to a non-extraditable exile - or - commit suicide by a bullet to the back of the head.

astral-codexten |  Tyler Cowen linked Milky Eggs’ excellent overview of the FTX crash. I’m unqualified to comment on any of the financial or regulatory aspects. But it turns out there’s a psychopharmacology angle, which I am qualified to talk about, so let’s go.

1: Was SBF Using A Medication That Can Cause Overspending And Compulsive Gambling As A Side Effect?

 

Probably yes, and maybe it could have had some small effect, but probably not as much as the people discussing it on Twitter think.

Milky Eggs reports a claim by an employee that Sam was on “a patch for designer stimulants that mainlined them into his blood to give him a constant buzz at all times”. This could be a hyperbolic description of Emsam, a patch form of the antidepressant/antiparkinsonian agent selegiline. The detectives at the @AutismCapital Twitter account found a photo of SBF, zoomed in on a scrap of paper on his desk, and recognized it as an Emsam wrapper.

 What’s the blue-green bottle to the left of the red circle?

Here the detectives on r/NootropicsDepot recognized it as their company’s old brand of adrafinil7. Adrafinil is a prodrug of modafinil, an unusual stimulant-like drug. That is, your body metabolizes adrafinil and turns it into modafinil after you take it.

So was SBF effectively on modafinil? Seems likely - many traders are. I won’t lie - modafinil is a good stimulant, during medical residency some doctors (including me) would use it to stay alert through the night shift. It’s not any better than Adderall or anything, just a bit different and easier to get.

Does it affect attitudes to risk? Hopefully you can already predict my answer to that question: all dopaminergics affect attitude to risk in complicated ways we don’t really understand, but for most people these effects will be too small to notice. There’s one case report of modafinil causing pathological gambling, and various contrived studies where neuroscientists investigate how modafinil shifts some technical parameter in a risk curve; these kinds of studies often don’t replicate. I think you can really just stick to your prior of “all dopaminergics affect risk curves in ways we don’t understand, but it’s usually fine when your job doesn’t require perfectly-tuned risk awareness”.

Except - was he taking the selegiline and adrafinil at the same time?

Selegiline prevents the body from breaking down dopamine. Modafinil works by preventing cells from reabsorbing dopamine. If you can’t break it down, and you can’t reabsorb it, what happens? Does it just build up forever until it explodes and you die?

This is what happens with serotonin. If you take a drug that prevents serotonin breakdown (like a traditional MAOI) and a drug that prevents serotonin reuptake (like an SSRI) at the same time, you definitely die. Lots of doctors have noticed that the MAOI + stimulant situation is pretty similar and decided you shouldn’t take these at the same time either. So some people following the FTX situation have wondered whether this combo might have been very dangerous - either to Sam’s health or to his risk-management ability.

 

Why Did NBC News Suspend Miguel Almaguer For Accurately Reporting On Paul Pelosi?

dailymail  |  NBC News is under mounting pressure to explain its actions after retracting the controversial segment and this week suspending Almaguer, pending an internal inquiry.

It made the move despite a second report on the company-owned-and-operated NBC Bay Area station that repeats many of the same points in his segment.

National correspondent Almaguer quoted sources saying the husband of House Speaker Nancy did not immediately declare an emergency when he answered the door to police at the couple's San Francisco home following a 911 call.

NBC removed the footage from its website hours after airing on November 4, saying it 'did not meet' its reporting standards - and this week suspended the 45-year-old reporter pending an internal investigation.

et San Francisco's local NBC Bay Area news still has available online a report that also questions versions of the horrific incident, asking why Mr. Pelosi didn't flee the $8million house the moment officers arrived.

The suspension of Almaguer- who has been with NBC since 2009 – has now reignited conspiracy theories surrounding the early hours break-in and attack on October 28, allegedly carried out by Canadian national David DePape, 42.

Almaguer has not appeared on the network since the report, which directly contradicted claims made by prosecutors and the police.

One former senior NBC executive told Fox News that station 'needs to be more transparent with its viewers about this error… NBC owes it to its audience to be truthful and not cover this up'.

Unlike most affiliates, NBC Bay Area is directly owned and operated by the parent company. It is one of only around a dozen in the country to have such an arrangement while more than 200 others are independently owned.

In the now retracted report, Almaguer can be heard saying over footage of the four-bedroom Pelosi home: 'NBC News learning new details about the moments police arrived.

'Sources familiar with what unfolded in the Pelosi residence now revealing when officers responded to the high priority call they were seemingly unaware they had been called to the home of the Speaker of the House.

'After a knock and announce the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi. The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or try to leave his home, but instead began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police.'

The correspondent added: 'It's unclear if the 82-year-old was already injured or what his mental state was, say sources.

'According to court documents, when the officer asked what was going on 'defendant smiled and said that everything's good' but instantaneously a struggle ensued as police clearly saw David DePape strike Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer.

'After tackling the suspect, officers rushed to Mr. Pelosi who was lying in a pool of blood.'

The footage then cut to Almaguer on screen saying: 'Law enforcement officials tell us the bottom line here is this is a terrifying situation.

'We still don't know exactly what unfolded between Mr. Pelosi and the suspect for the 30 minutes they were alone inside the house before police arrived. Officials who were investigating this matter would not go into further details about these new details.'

 

 

Police Bodycam Footage Shows That Paul Pelosi Opened The Door For Police

nbcbayarea  |  The Department of Justice and the San Francisco District Attorney's Office have outlined differing accounts of who opened the door when police responded to Pelosi's 911 call.

Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban shares new details about what the body camera video actually captured as police arrived at the Pelosi's San Francisco home.

Police body camera video that captured the attack on Paul Pelosi, and the moments leading up to it, contradict one of the details included in the Department of Justice's account of what happened that evening, according to a source familiar with the Pelosi investigation who personally viewed the body camera footage and spoke to the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit.

Despite this contradiction over who opened the door, the basic facts of the attack are not disputed in the documents: 42-year-old David DePape is accused of breaking into the Pelosi home and attacking 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a hammer. DePape is being held in San Francisco County jail on attempted murder and multiple other felony charges. According to court documents, DePape was looking for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Paul's wife, and threatened to break her kneecaps.

 

The Little Cokehead In Kiev Tried - And Epically Failed - To Trigger NATO Article 5

sonar21  |  I believe the evidence is overwhelming that Ukraine tried and failed to manufacture a “Russian” attack on Poland that would have justified NATO coming to Poland’s defense under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty and solved Kiev’s dilemma over how to replace the massive number of Ukrainian soldiers that were killed or wounded in combat during the past two months. It is a whopper of a number. And Ukraine is in desperate need of reinforcements that are not available if they rely on only drafting Ukrainians.

The S-300 was fired by Ukrainian forces located somewhere to the west of Kiev. It is highly likely that U.S. and Russian satellites recorded this launch. In other words, both sides know where the S-300 originated.

It is highly unlikely — hell, impossible — that this was an “errant” missile that Ukraine fired in a moment of desperation trying to take down an in bound Russian missile. Why? The Russian missiles are flying from the south to the north or from the east to the west. That means if Ukraine is firing an anti-missile defense system at those inbound missiles the Ukrainian missile would travel from west to east.

But that is not what happened here. The S-300 traveled east to west. Unless the Ukrainian operator who launched the S-300 was drunk on his ass, it is impossible to “accidentally” fire this air defense missile in the wrong direction.

But repeating a lie does not make it true. You may insist that the Sun rises in the West, but no matter how loud you shout or how many times you repeat that nonsense, it is not true. Same principle applies here. An anti-air defense missile fired at missiles coming from the east and the south does not magically travel in the opposite direction.

I believe this is another indicator of Zelensky’s growing desperation. Think about it for a moment. If Ukraine really had Russia on its heels, why fabricate an easily disproved claim that Russia attacked Poland with a missile? This was sloppy trade-craft. If Ukraine had used another Russian missile capable of flying the distance from current Russian lines to that farm in Poland, then the circumstantial evidence might have ignited the desired fire among the NATO members.

I think one of the reasons the US Department of Defense was so quick to agree with the Russians about the origin of the missile is that the technical data from the National Reconnaissance Office pin pointed the launch location. It the NRO knows then the Russians, who have similar capabilities, would know.

I also think that Ukraine and Poland cooked up this plan without telling Demented Joey Biden. The incident was timed to coincide with the G-20 meeting in Bali. Hence, my title — Epic Fail.

 

 

Who Now Speaks For The Poles?

johnhelmer |  No one in Poland is in any doubt now that Tuesday’s missile attack on Przewodów* village, eight kilometres west of the Ukrainian border, was caused by a Russian-made missile fired by the Ukrainian military acting on the orders of President Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev. Two  villagers were killed by the Ukrainian action. That Zelensky continues to deny this makes him a liar throughout Poland.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has made this official. “There is a high probability that it was a missile that was used for missile defense; that is, it was used by the Ukrainian defence forces”. Duda justified the action by telling Polish voters: “Ukraine defended itself – which is obvious and understandable – by firing missiles which were tasked with hitting Russian missiles.”

Duda was sharply and publicly corrected by the national party politician closest to the incident, Jaroslaw Pakula, the head of the Lublin City Council.  “ ‘Of course, it’s a Ukrainian rocket. Of course, this is a provocation on the part of the Ukrainian authorities…The rocket could not be fired 100 km in the opposite direction by mistake.’ The aim of the provocation was to scare the EU and gain civil society support to send even more weapons to Ukraine, Pakula added. Instead of saying ‘fairy tales’ about the missile, the Polish president should tell Ukrainian Vladimir Zelensky that Warsaw ‘will no longer put up with this behaviour’ by Kiev.”  

Pakula posted his commentary on his Facebook account.  “I urge you to rethink Poland’s position [looking] at this war in case the red line is crossed again!”  Pakula told Duda and the leadership of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Warsaw.

Zelensky told the Polish Government: “I have no doubt that this is not our missile. I believe that this was a Russian missile, based on our military reports.”  In a full text of his remarks republished from Ukrainian into Polish by the state Polish Press Agency (PAP), Zelensky added:  “It was not our rocket, not our missile strike…I am convinced that we should and will [take part in the Polish investigation]…I want us to be fair, and if it was the use of our air defense,  then I want that evidence. First the investigation, access, and the data you [Polish government] have.”  

The Polish news agency also reported the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council as claiming: “we are ready to provide our [Polish] partners with the evidence of the Russian footprint that we have. We also expect information from the partners, on the basis of which the final conclusion was drawn [by the Poles] that it is a Ukrainian air defense missile.”

Former Polish senator for the opposition party Civic Platform (PO), Robert Smoktunowicz, commented: “Not only have we not yet received an apology and expressions of regret from the president. Zelensky for the explosion and death of two Polish citizens. What is worse, the Ukrainian side denies its responsibility and demands evidence from the Polish side. What went wrong after February 24?”  

Stanislas Balcerac, an independent political analyst based in Warsaw, acknowledges that the Ukrainian missile attack has struck at the rural heartland of eastern Poland which has voted solidly for the PiS party to win the provincial council and governorate (voivodeship) elections of October 2018;   and likewise the national parliament (Sejm) elections of October 2019  and the presidential election which Duda won narrowly in June 2020.

“The PiS has had to fight on three fronts,” Balcerac said “coronavirus, the war in Ukraine, and Brussels’ game of blocking European Union money for Poland. That’s quite a lot.”

He believes the PiS and its leaders – Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski — must maintain a balancing act in public, but privately they are furious at Zelensky’s statements. In the context of the current war, adds Balcerac, “Poland has a specific history with both Germany and Russia.”

In Warsaw, that phrase “specific history” means much more than anyone can calculate in votes for the moment.

The moment won’t last, comments a veteran NATO military analyst. “It hasn’t gotten hard enough for the Poles or Ukrainians. Winter hasn’t sunk in yet. We’ll know better in a week or three.”

The UniParty Blocked Douglas McGregor From A Trump Appointment

TAC  |  No serious person in Washington can say they were not warned of the impact of their power-lust in expanding NATO. But the lie continues. The top foreign policy leaders who spoke up over the years against the destructive interventions were ignored.

William Burns, Biden's director of the CIA—the agency charged with knowing how other nations will act and react—has had a ringside seat on Russian and NATO policy for more than 30 years. In 1990, Burns served under Secretary of State James Baker in a planning role during the period when Baker made the pledge to Russia that NATO would not advance past the borders of the newly reunited Germany.

Burns's career as an anointed cardinal of the Deep State is well documented. In fact, he is a bit of a legacy. Burns's father, a major general in the Army, was deeply involved in intelligence work and served Reagan and Bush I on the Disarmament Councils. Burns himself was a Clinton appointee in 1995 when he wrote, while serving as counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, that "hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here."

The intensity of Russia's antipathy to the expansion of NATO toward their border, and Ukraine in particular, was accentuated in a 2008 report by Burns—at that time U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation—to Bush II Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests." 

Even if Biden’s CIA director was not able to bring his extensive experience to bear this year, others in the State Department knew full well how Russia would react to open moves to add Ukraine to the membership rolls of NATO. Yet Victoria Nuland, mandarin in the neocon ranks of the foreign policy establishment and State Department, in 2013 boasted that the U.S. had spent more than $5 billion promoting pro-Western "civil society" groups in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War.

In 2014 the United States assisted, if not outright directed, a coup d'état against an elected government in Ukraine because that government wanted friendly relations with Russia—a larger neighbor with a shared history stretching back centuries. The Deep State could not tolerate that friendship. An infamous leaked call between then Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and former U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt discussing helping "midwife" the February 2014 revolution can be heard here. University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer gave a 2015 lecture in which he warned about the problems and dangers wrought by the 2014 U.S.-engineered Ukraine crisis.

After numerous rebuffed Russian diplomatic overtures to resolve the dangers posed by an unfriendly and NATO-armed Ukraine, Russia did act—as Kennan, Burns, and others predicted. The Russians moved in 2014 to defend their southern border. By supporting local Russian-speaking separatists, Russia was able to secure Crimea, a peninsula that had been central to the Russian Navy for 300 years. Did they go further? No. Did they start a full-on war?  No. But they did as they had promised and moved to defend their nation’s southern front. As Professor John Mearsheimer pointed out in a June 6, 2022, lecture, there was a long list of provocations by the U.S. and NATO leading up to that.

Larry Johnson Boldly Dot-Connecting Demo-krainian Fustercluckery

Larry Johnson asserts that the Poles have had many casualties in Ukraine recently.

He points out an intriguing tangle, something like how Monica Lewinsky saved Social Security – Is Sam Bankman the Fried a bag man extraordinaire, now exposed? Quoting Johnson: “The United States, by contrast, is exercising great caution. Part of the reason for that hesitancy is the financial collapse of FTX, which is exposing evidence that the Democrats, some Republicans, the Ukrainians and FTX organized an elaborate financial kickback scheme. The scheme involved promising members of Congress who sent money to Ukraine a hefty contribution in turn from a Democrat benefactor. In this case, the owner of FTX. ”

Others have hinted. Johnson is boldly connecting the dots.

One more money-laundering operation out of Ukraine, that Epitome of Direct Democracy (and Deposits) of Central Europe? Should I be shocked?

And was Hunter Biden involved?

Further down, I've embedded a long and readable (though unrollable) Jason Choi twitter thread: “Here’s more information on the shady “Mind the Gap” bundler operation founded by @SBF_FTX’s mother, Barbara Fried, and led by @Stanford faculty, funneling millions of dollars from Silicon Valley to the Democrat Party:”  If anyone wants to know what happened, send them this.

sonar21  | Tuesday marks the largest Russian bombardment of Ukraine with precision guided missiles and drones. The Ukrainian equivalent of the Pentagon reported was struck in Kiev. And Western media now is reporting frantically that Russia fired a missile at a target in Poland. Russia denies it vehemently and initial pictures of the “device” that landed in Poland appear to show a S-300 anti-air defense missile.

The big unanswered question is whether this was an error, i.e., Ukraine fired at incoming Russian missiles and the S-300 missed its target and fell inside Polish territory, or was it an attempt to manufacture a false flag, i.e., blame Russia for firing the missile and create a pretext to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty and bring the rest of NATO into the war to stop Russia. The jury is still out.

Neither Poland nor the Brits appear inclined to wait for facts to develop and are rattling swords about the need to invoke article 5 of the NATO Charter.

The United States, by contrast, is exercising great caution. Part of the reason for that hesitancy is the financial collapse of FTX, which is exposing evidence that the Democrats, some Republicans, the Ukrainians and FTX organized an elaborate financial kickback scheme. The scheme involved promising members of Congress who sent money to Ukraine a hefty contribution in turn from a Democrat benefactor. In this case, the owner of FTX. Once the U.S. dollars were credited to Ukraine’s account, President Zelensky and his partners diverted some of the proceeds to purchase crypto currency from FTX. FTX, in turn, sent some of that funds back to the cooperating members of Congress and the Democrat National Committee. This scheme is unraveling. The dummies mistakenly believed that crypto is untraeable. Nope. Thanks to block chain, eminently traceable.

The Definitive Thread on FTX

I met SBF before FTX started, and witnessed their rise and fall. I can't stand @nytimes's puff piece.

If anyone wants to know what happened, send them this.

— Jason Choi (@mrjasonchoi) November 15, 2022

If article 5 is invoked because of the alleged attack on Poland then we are facing a major, dangerous escalation of the war in Ukraine. A lot of Polish troops have been killed in Ukraine over the last month and I doubt the leaders in Warsaw are in the mood to negotiate.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky gave a schizophrenic speech about the missiles smashing throughout Ukraine.

On the one hand he acknowledges that the Russian missiles have knocked out electrical power in many cities, which also affects the ability to supply water and heat to more than 10 million Ukrainians. But then he makes this odd claim, i.e., boasting that Western air defense systems have shot down most of these Russian missiles. Really? Take a look at these two successive missiles striking Kiev earlier today:

What Was The Point Of Calling Those Ukrainian S-300 Missiles That Hit Poland "Russian-Made"?

apnews |  Poland said early Wednesday that a Russian-made missile fell in the country’s east, killing two people, though U.S. President Joe Biden said it was “unlikely” it was fired from Russia.

The blast, which Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy decried as “a very significant escalation,” prompted Biden to call an emergency meeting of G-7 and NATO leaders. A deliberate, hostile attack on NATO member Poland could trigger a collective military response by the alliance.

Poland: The S-300 strike seems to have come from the Ukrainian side.

US: Because of the trajectory, it’s unlikely to be a Russian strike.

British media, naturally: pic.twitter.com/auyho2C2vt

— Nina 🐙 Byzantina (@NinaByzantina) November 16, 2022

But key questions around the circumstances of the missile launch remained amid the confusion caused by a blistering series of Russian airstrikes across the nearby border in Ukraine, none larger than who fired it. Russia denied any involvement in the Poland blast.

Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one amid the crushing salvo against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradict information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told the AP that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

The Polish government said it was investigating and raising its level of military preparedness. Biden pledged support for Poland’s investigation.

A statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry identified the weapon as being made in Russia. President Andrzej Duda was more cautious, saying that it was “most probably” Russian-made but that its origins were still being verified.

“We are acting with calm,” Duda said. “This is a difficult situation.”

Biden’s decision to convene the emergency meeting upended schedules for the final day of the Group of 20 meeting in Indonesia.

Biden, who was awakened overnight by staff with the news of the missile while attending the summit, called Polish President Andrzej Duda to express his condolences. On Twitter, Biden promised “full U.S support for and assistance with Poland’s investigation,” and “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to NATO.”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the meeting of the alliance’s envoys in Brussels. The U.N. Security Council also planned to meet Wednesday for a previously scheduled briefing on the situation in Ukraine. The strike in Poland was certain to be raised.

 

Talking Turkey About Ukraine In Turkiye?

sonar21  |  Following a terrorist bombing in Istanbul — attributed to the Kurdish Workers Party by Turkish authorities — Turkey’s Foreign Minister told the United States to go screw itself.

According to the breaking news, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in a statement after the explosion on Istanbul Taksim Istiklal Street, “We do not accept the condolence message of the US Embassy. If we had not caught the attacker, he would have fled to Greece today.” said.

Minister Soylu said, “Operations continue. All of our security, security forces, and all intelligence units are on alert together. We said what we were going to say last night. We know how the incident was coordinated. We know how it was coordinated.“We will bury our bodies. We have just sent our Ecrin to Adana and sent his father. It must be said. We know the message that was given to us, we received the message that was given to us and we know what the message was given to us. We will send a very strong message to this message,” he said.

https://www.cnnturk.com/video/turkiye/son-dakika-istiklal-caddesinde-pkk-saldirisi-bakan-soylu-abdnin-taziyesini-kabul-etmiyoruz%C2%AD

Let me translate — Turkey blames the United States for the attack because of its role in funding and arming the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. The Government of Turkey has been at war with the Kurdish Worker’s Party (i.e., PKK) since the 1970s. Full disclosure, my former boss at State Department, Ambassador Morris Busby, and I were hired in 1996 (after we left the service of the US Government) by the Government of Turkey to produce a study regarding Greek support for the PKK. Here is a shocker — we concluded that the Greek government provided financial support to the PKK, making the Greeks a de facto state sponsor of terrorism, at least in the eyes of Turkey.

The statement by Turkey’s Interior Minister is not just a passing, emotional response. He is sending Biden and his team a clear message — we blame you for this. Quite a potential rupture of the process to bring two new NATO members into the fold. This is likely to make Turkey even more determined to press Sweden and Finland to stop harboring PKK members. Unless the two aspiring NATO applicants submit to Turkey’s demands, Turkey will continue to block their admission. This will create a dilemma for NATO. Press Sweden and Finland to accede to Turkey’s position on the matter or ignore Turkey and risk Turkey withdrawing from NATO.

Turkey appears to be relishing its growing influence as an international political broker. It was the site of futile peace talks in March between Russia and Ukraine. It has played a key role in brokering the deal to allow Ukrainian grain to be shipped ostensibly to needy countries. And yesterday (Monday), the Russian and US spy chiefs met in Turkey:

Reports have circulated in Russian media about secret US-Russian talks hosted by Türkiye. The Kommersant daily reported, citing anonymous sources, that the un-announced meeting is allegedly being held on Monday in the Turkish capital Ankara. The outlet reports that Moscow has sent Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, to the talks. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later confirmed to Russian media that bilateral talks had taken place in Ankara, adding that they were held at the US’ initiative. Earlier this month, Western media reported that top Russian and US officials were engaging in undeclared contacts. According to the Wall Street Journal, US national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has been engaged with Yury Ushakov, a senior foreign policy aide to President Vladimir Putin, and with Nikolay Patrushev, Sullivan’s counterpart in the Russian government.

https://www.rt.com/russia/566501-russia-us-secret-talks/

I agree with Moon of Alabama’s conclusion that Washington’s claim about the purpose of the meeting is false:

The Biden administration has now confirmed that CIA head Burns has met with Naryshkin. But it is lying about the content of the talks:

• William J. Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, met with his Russian counterpart in Turkey on Monday to warn Russia against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, a White House spokesman said.
• The National Security Council said Mr. Burns’s meeting in Ankara was not in any way meant to negotiate or to discuss any settlement of the war in Ukraine. Ukraine was briefed in advance on the trip, the spokesman said.
• President Biden has insisted that Ukraine, and not the United States, will dictate if and when negotiations commence to end the war.

Russia has not threatened to use nuclear weapons. There is no reason for it to do so and many good reason to refrain from using them. It would foremost alienate China and other Russian allies.  It was in fact the U.S. which planted nuclear scare stories in another of its attempts to smear Russia. The U.S. of course knows that there is no danger that Russia would use nukes and it is likely that Burns did not even mention them.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/us-russia-intelligence-chiefs-discuss-ukraine.html#more

The United States asked for this meeting. Not Russia. When you factor that in with General Mark Milley’s call for Ukraine to entertain negotiations with Russia, this is a clear sign that the United States has growing concerns about Ukraine’s prospects for success and Washington’s ability to keep funneling money into the Black Hole of Kiev:

 

Does It Strike You As Odd That The CIA Director Is Representing U.S. Foreign Policy?

rferl  |  U.S. President Joe Biden has hailed Ukraine's retaking of the city of Kherson as a "significant victory," raising confidence that Moscow will not occupy its neighbor as intended when it invaded in late February.

The liberation of Kherson over the weekend was one of Ukraine's biggest successes in nearly nine months since the start of the Russian invasion.

Biden commented on the development during a press conference after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Bali, Indonesia.

"I can do nothing but applaud the courage, determination, and capacity of the Ukrainian people," he said. "I think you are going to see things slow down a bit because of the winter months.... I think it remains to be seen exactly what the outcome will be."

Biden also raised Russia's "irresponsible threats of nuclear use," according to a White House readout on the meeting.

"President Biden and President Xi reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine," the statement said.

Separately, CIA Director Bill Burns met in Ankara, Turkey, on November 14 with Russian intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

Burns underscored the consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, according to a White House National Security Council official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"He is not conducting negotiations of any kind. He is not discussing settlement of the war in Ukraine," the White House official said. "He is conveying a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability."

Russian officials have alarmed Western governments by raising the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in Ukraine.

 

FTX Connections To The Ukrainian Government - Democrat Party - And WEF

theblaze  |  Curiously, the Ukrainian government launched a cryptocurrency donation website in March that was backed by FTX.

CoinDesk reported in March, "'Aid for Ukraine,' which has the backing of crypto exchange FTX, staking platform Everstake, and Ukraine’s Kuna exchange, will route donated crypto to the National Bank of Ukraine, Everstake’s Head of Growth Vlad Likhuta told CoinDesk. Ukraine’s crypto-savvy Ministry of Digital Transformation is also involved."

https://t.co/CRlnlSkWdZ pic.twitter.com/Nwz5Vx8CvS

— Fr Calvin Robinson (@calvinrobinson) November 14, 2022 >

An Everstake press release stated, "Aid For Ukraine is cooperating with the cryptocurrency exchange FTX which converts crypto funds received into fiat and sends the donations to the National Bank of Ukraine. This marks the first-ever instance of a cryptocurrency exchange directly cooperating with a public financial entity to provide a conduit for crypto donations. Earlier this month, FTX already converted $1 million worth of SOL and transferred it to the National Bank of Ukraine."

Bankman-Fried said at the time:

At the onset of the conflict in Ukraine, FTX felt the need to provide assistance in any way it could. By working with the Ministry of Digital Transformation to set up payment rails and facilitate the conversion of crypto donations into fiat currency, we have given the National Bank of Ukraine the ability to deliver aid and resources to the people who need it most. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with Sergey and the Everstake team as they continue to work tirelessly in helping Ukrainians as they suffer from this conflict.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) lists FTX as a partner, and provides a link to the exchange's website.

American Political Misleadership Dangerous To America And To The World

therealnews  |  In the months of July and September 1940 the French historian and future resistance fighter Marc Bloch, who fought in World War I and World War II, wrote a short book called L’Étrange Défaite or Strange Defeat. It was a searing condemnation of the French high command and political class which was responsible for the humiliating defeat and disintegration of the French army with the Nazi invasion of France. Bloch, who went underground to fight the Nazi occupiers, was executed by the Gestapo in 1944. 

Bloch’s book, published after the war, was the model for historian Andrew Bacevich’s book After the Apocalypse. Bacevich is no less censorious of the political and military class that has led the United States into one debacle after the next since Vietnam, a war he served in as a young officer. He argues they are woefully out of touch with reality, and unable to adapt to a changing world. Unless they are wrenched from power, the twilight of the American empire will be one filled with catastrophe after catastrophe. Andrew Bacevich joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss his book After the Apocalypse.

Andrew Bacevich is a retired army colonel and Emeritus Professor of History and International Relations at Boston University. He is also the cofounder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

American Politicians Can Make A Name-Stealer Blush....,

BAR  |  It isn’t incompetence that keeps the democrats from fully realizing their political power. The terrible truth is that they prefer horse trading over the issues of importance to their donor class than they do meeting the needs of the people. Why does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi constantly speak of the need for a “strong republican party?” She needs a strong republican party, that is to say one which doesn’t resemble the January 6th rabble that frightened most of the nation. A more respectable and traditional republican party is one she can compromise with, and both sides of the aisle can represent the interests of the U.S. oligarchy while pretending otherwise.

Claims that every election is the most important in history, or a test of democracy, is a line meant for gullible rubes. They tell us so themselves. As president, Barack Obama presented republicans with a “grand bargain” of austerity so bad that Congressional Black Caucus member Emmanuel Cleaver referred to it as a “sugar coated satan sandwich.” As part of this plan Obama convened a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that was soon dubbed “the catfood commission.” Yet Obama hit the 2022 mid-term election campaign trail and condemned republicans for wanting to cut social security, which is exactly what he proposed doing ten years earlier.

Democrats raise millions of dollars for their presidential campaigns but come up empty in those state races which have a great impact on Americans’ lives. They don’t want to transform the country on behalf of the people. They are always on the side of their donor class and that is why the national leadership aren’t very concerned when republicans control state capitals. They will actually take a dive and then use their own corruption as a fundraising tool, pointing fingers at the republicans they have declared villains while secretly hoping they have to share power with them.

The inevitable result is senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia being in a close race with Herschel Walker, a former football player who mouths right wing, that is to say white wing, talking points on every issue. Warnock should have been further ahead but close races are guaranteed when there is no minimum wage increase while inflation runs rampant.

Of course inflation is high. Corporations gouge the public as much as they like because there is no major political party opposing them. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act won’t reduce inflation by itself, but clever marketing is one of the tools used to keep the people fooled about how politics really work.

Why are margins so close in the House and the Senate when the people prefer what democrats claim to offer? The democrats are the ultimate cynics. They know what the people want and campaign accordingly, but once in office use the senate parliamentarian, arcane rules, or the bad cops among them to say that their hands are tied. The charade is a perfect crime.

Whatever the outcome of the races still to be decided, it is clear that the people must look to themselves and not at Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or former president Obama, to guard their interests. They have different interests which are antithetical to those of the people. Electioneering fanfare cannot cover up this terrible but obvious truth.

If Black, A Gang. If Italian, A Mob. If Jewish, A Coincidence. Hope They Don't Take Anything Away From You

NYTimes  | When Dave Chappelle has previously hosted “Saturday Night Live,” his primary role has been to help the audience find humor in recent news events. This time, he was the news event.

But while Chappelle used his standup monologue this weekend to comment on a wide range of topics, including recent antisemitic remarks from Kanye West, the midterm elections and the persistence of former President Trump, he did not directly address the fallout from his 2021 Netflix special “The Closer,” which was criticized as sexist, homophobic and transphobic.

Taking the stage at “S.N.L.” as the house band played “Try a Little Tenderness,” Chappelle told the audience that he would begin by delivering a prepared statement. “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community,” he said, reading from the statement. He then looked up and added, “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”

In his usual fashion, Chappelle mocked West, now known as Ye, while performatively pushing boundaries of propriety and channeling some of the myths that underpin enduring antisemitic stereotypes.

From early in his career, Chappelle said, “I learned that there are two words in the English language that you should never say together in sequence. And those words are ‘the’ and ‘Jews.’”

He later said in the monologue that he had been to Hollywood and, based on his own travels, “It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot. But that doesn’t mean anything. There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Mo. That doesn’t mean they run the place.”

Crypto-as-Commodity? Name Stealers Electing And Exploiting IQ-75 Politicians...,

dailycaller |  Sam Bankman-Fried, prolific Democratic donor and ex-CEO of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, funded the campaigns of members of Congress overseeing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), one of the key bodies tasked with regulating the crypto industry and the subject of Bankman-Fried’s aggressive lobbying.

Bankman-Fried’s FTX is currently under investigation by the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after Bankman-Fried allegedly moved $10 billion in client assets from his crypto exchange to his trading firm Alameda Research, and a liquidity crisis at his  exchange which prompted the company to file for bankruptcy. However, prior to the agency’s probe, Bankman-Fried aggressively courted the CFTC – and funded several key lawmakers charged with overseeing the agency, pouring cash into their campaign coffers.

The CFTC is charged with regulating certain elements of the crypto marketplace, including digital assets that are commodities as well as crypto exchanges and clearinghouses. The agency is overseen by the Senate and House Agriculture Committees, with the former tasked with approving CFTC commissioners nominated by the president. (RELATED: Obama’s ‘Democracy Forum’ Promotes Director Of ‘Zuckerbucks’ Organization That Poured Millions Into 2020 Election)

The former FTX CEO personally donated to the Senate committee’s chairwoman, Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, contributing over $20,000 to the Stabenow Victory Fund and $5,800 to her campaign for Senate. Bankman-Fried donated roughly $6,000 to the committee’s ranking member, Republican Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, as well, and $5,800 to the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management and Trade, Republican Montana Sen. John Hoeven.

The offices of Stabenow, Boozman and Hoeven did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

More significantly, American Dream Federal Action, a political action committee founded by FTX executive Ryan Salame, spent over $1 million on Boozman during the 2022 election cycle, according to campaign finance records, and over $1 million on House Agriculture Committee member and Republican Minnesota Rep. Brad Finstad.

Bankman-Fried is also a key funder of the Protect Our Future PAC, which primarily works to elect Democrats, bankrolling the group to the tune of $27 million this election cycle. The PAC spent over $1 million funding Democratic Ohio Rep. Shontel Brown, a member of the House Agriculture Committee.

Bankman-Fried donated roughly $6,000 to ousted Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee, and over $200,000 to Maloney’s DCCC.

Bankman-Fried also contributed almost $6,000 to Senate Agriculture Committee member and Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and roughly $6,000 to committee member and Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign, with another $10,000 to the Gillibrand Victory Fund.

Brown, Maloney, Gillibrand and Booker did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment, nor did Protect Our Future.

In addition to his campaign contributions to the lawmakers tasked with CFTC oversight, Bankman-Fried sought closer relations with the agency itself.

Bankman-Fried personally lobbied for legislation in the Senate Agriculture Committee that would grant the CFTC greater regulatory oversight over the crypto industry, according to Coindesk, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the CFTC, SEC and members of Congress on the legislation.

The bill, known as the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act, which would grant the CFTC “jurisdiction to oversee the spot digital commodity market,” was introduced by Stabenow, Boozman, Booker and Republican North Dakota Sen. John Thune, three of whom are beneficiaries of Bankman-Fried’s donations.

For its lobbying team, FTX hired former Republican Rep. Mike Conaway, longtime chair of the House Agriculture Committee, and committee staffer Scott Graves to lobby lawmakers on crypto-related issues.

 

Inside-Baseball Details On The Takedown Of Kanye West

pagesix |  Beloved celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak appeared to threaten to “institutionalize” Kanye West so that the rapper would be medicated into “Zombieland forever.”

Following his anti-Semitic rants, West shared texts purportedly sent by Pasternak, who is Jewish, that began by offering to have a “loving, open conversation” with him based on “fact.” Pasternak also asked his former friend and client to refrain from “cuss words” or “crazy stuff.”

“Second option, I have you institutionalized again where they medicate the crap out of you, and you go back to Zombieland forever. Play date with the kids just won’t be the same,” the message continued.

West, 45, tweeted the screenshot Thursday and wrote that he was “mentally misdiagnosed and nearly drugged out of my mind to make me a manageable well behaved celebrity.”

“This is how a Hollywood trainer speaks to a far more influential black celebrity when we get out of line,” West added in a follow-up tweet.

Pasternak, 48, didn’t immediately return Page Six’s request for comment. He did, however, change his Instagram profile to private.

The texts purportedly sent by Pasternak, who has worked with Jessica Simpson, Jack Black, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and more celebrities, confirm reports that he made the phone call that resulted in West’s 2016 hospitalization.

The Grammy winner’s treatment came after he had a meltdown onstage right before the rest of his tour was canceled.

“He’s been suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation and went to the hospital today on his own will and under the consultation of his physician,” a source close to West said at the time.

The Los Angeles Police Department told The Post at the time that its officers responded to a call for a “disturbance,” but once they arrived at the address, the incident was classified as a “medical emergency.”

The rapper-turned-fashion designer has been under fire in recent months for his anti-Semitic remarks. While friends close to West claim he’s in the midst of a “psychiatric episode,” others maintain that his mental state does not exempt him from consequences, which include losing lucrative partnerships with Adidas and Balenciaga.  Fist tap Dale.

 

 

 

2nd Only To George Soros In The Volume Of Bribes Paid To Democrats..,

WaPo  |   Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old wunderkind of cryptocurrency, spent tens of millions of dollars over the past year trying to reshape how Washington and the world think about finance.

The crypto exchange he founded, FTX, had become an industry-dominating business in just three years, valued at $32 billion as recently as January. He amassed political clout in an even bigger hurry, emerging from obscurity to become the second-biggest Democratic donor in the midterm elections.

By Friday, the money and the clout had disappeared: Bankman-Fried resigned from FTX, which then filed for bankruptcy. And Bankman-Fried was left facing harrowing questions about his role in the most catastrophic collapse the notoriously volatile crypto industry has so far seen.

When Bankman-Fried was just 28, he built a platform that offered investors easy access to buying, selling and stashing bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The offshore exchange allowed investors to place risky bets not allowed in the United States, though it was easy enough for American users to find workarounds; a U.S. affiliate offered limited services. With a massive marketing push — including a flashy Super Bowl ad and naming rights to the Miami Heat arena — he sought to make crypto trading a mainstream pastime.

Meanwhile, he was using his newfound political clout to sell Washington on a regulatory regime that promised to work to his advantage. The contrasts were glaring and never easily reconciled: As crypto’s self-appointed ambassador to Washington, Bankman-Fried was pressing for federal regulation even as he dodged U.S. oversight from his corporate headquarters in the Bahamas.

The executive acknowledged that FTX’s aggressive lobbying made him an outlier in crypto. “Outside of us, there weren’t many people engaging,” Bankman-Fried said in an interview last month with The Washington Post. “I think that means we have to do a better job as an industry more generally engaging.”

In March, he appeared at the House Democratic retreat in Philadelphia with his arm around House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). In April, he turned up in the office of Caroline Pham, a Republican member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, less than a week after she assumed the post, along with Mark Wetjen, the former acting chair of the agency and now Bankman-Fried’s top Washington adviser. Hill staffers say they regularly spotted him around the Capitol, shuttling between meetings flanked by Wetjen and Eliora Katz, who joined FTX this summer from the staff of the Senate Banking Committee’s top Republican, Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.)

 

Bankman Fried (Priceless...,) Tried To Politically Gin Up Central Bank Support For Crypto-Shystery...,

NYTimes | FTX’s founder was called a modern-day J.P. Morgan. The analogy still works. Though one of them failed and the other died rich, both of their careers make the case for central banks.

Mr. Bankman-Fried tried to bail out a couple of smaller failed crypto firms, Voyager Digital and BlockFi Inc., drawing laudatory press that compared him to J.P. Morgan Sr.

The Morgan analogy was repeated this week even after FTX customers withdrew $6 billion in funds in the equivalent of a bank run, forcing FTX to freeze operations and stranding billions in remaining customers’ potentially lost assets.

For all of the obvious ways in which Mr. Bankman-Fried is no Pierpont Morgan, a model of discretion whose namesake firm continues to be solvent to this day, on one point they have something in common: Their careers demonstrate a need for central banks.

Morgan earned his reputation as a private rescuer in 1907, when a bank run struck the trusts (banklike associations) in New York City and then spread to traditional banks. Morgan assembled the city’s leading financiers to lend emergency funds and ease the panic.

His heroism slowed the bleeding — but some banks failed, many suspended withdrawals and scores resorted to dispensing homemade certificates in lieu of money. As each bank hoarded reserves to save itself, the stock market plunged 40 percent and the country suffered a severe recession.

Morgan’s inadequacy made plain that the United States, already an industrial powerhouse, could not depend on the benevolence of a single financier. Precisely for this reason, Nelson Aldrich, a powerful senator with close ties to Morgan, led a mission to Europe in 1908 to study the workings of the central banks in England, France and Germany.

Two years later, a group of bankers, including a senior partner of Morgan’s, the president of its rival National City Bank, and the central banking crusader Paul Warburg, gathered at Morgan’s exclusive club on Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. Meeting in secret, they plotted the outline of what Americans had resisted since Andrew Jackson’s day — a central bank. The Federal Reserve was born three years later, in 1913.

This week, The Wall Street Journal’s James Mackintosh opined, “The fundamental flaw of centralized finance is that it needs central banks to end chaotic bank runs …” This is like saying that the flaw with owning a home is that one may need the fire department.

Any monetary instrument is a form of credit, and credit will always involve risk. Mr. Bankman-Fried discovered that. His putative savior, a crypto exchange known as Binance, backed out 24 hours after it had tentatively agreed to a rescue. On Friday, FTX filed for bankruptcy. Yet had the rescue deal gone through, Binance would have been on the hook for, reportedly, up to $8 billion in claims against FTX. Who would have come to the rescue of Binance?

The point of a central reserve, which is what Paul Warburg and Nelson Aldrich had in mind in 1913, is that the pooled resources of the nation are immeasurably greater than those of any single mogul. They offer, in times of need, an ocean of liquidity to iron out the inevitable fluctuations in individual, regional, and industry-specific credit. Would anyone in their right mind wish to entrust the nation to crypto — and trade the imperfect Fed for the likes of FTX and Binance?

 

 

 

The Managed Withdrawal Eliminates The Thing DC And Kiev Were Hanging Their Hats On...,

You can’t understand military operations at any level without also understanding basic geography — especially the height of terrain features (hence the universal tactical imperative to “hold the high ground”).

The entire managed withdrawal (retreat) conversation has missed the crucial fact that the west bank of the Dnieper River is much higher than the east bank — thus there is no possibility of flooding the west side of the river. Any high water would inundate the flood plain to the east, which would cause the heavy artillery stationed there to displace and would disrupt fire support to the forces holding west of the river — not to mention also causing havoc with the supply lines leading up to the choke points of the bridges and ferries crossing the Dnieper, many of which would be damaged/washed away if the British managed to break the big Kakhovskaya dam with one of their underwater drones.

That is the problem that General Surovikin is pre-empting by his managed withdrawal from the east bank of the Dnieper now vs the chaos of a forced retreat after the SHTF from a massive dam break. The only inundation of the west bank that I can see occurs where the river just north of Kherson flows into the Dnieper, and it's relatively minor.

The article begins with the statement:
“A worst case modelling for a Russian demolition of the Nova Kakhovka Dnipro river dam show that the worst flooding will take place on the left (south east) side of the river bank.”  The animated map of the projected flooding is quite interesting, especially regarding the big backflow up the Bug River.  It shows that the majority of the water would inundate the east ban.   The right (west bank) of the river is generally higher than the east bank all the way north to Kiev. An old chestnut about WW II is that “if the Todt organization had begun fortifying the west bank of the Dnieper in 1942, the Germans would still be defending that line today….”

With Russian forces on the right bank Ukraine has good reason to combine destroying the dam with an offensive or just destroying it. Since Russia doesn’t really have the manpower applied to the conflict to do big pushes towards Nikolaev and Odessa the point of occupying the right bank at the moment is pride. And a temptation to dam busting. Ukraine might still blow up the dam, but it won’t create a huge blow to crimea and a military catastrophe along the river. The withdrawal also eliminates the legal reason for destroying the dam (it’s not legally prohibited when it serves a military purpose).

And in a weird way it eliminates the thing Kiev and DC we’re hanging their hats on. Sure, it can be said that Russia ran away but that’s a short news item. A defeat in the field was necessary; large losses, surrender, chaos. It’s not a short war anymore so it cannot be prosecuted like one. And the last thing the US needs or wants is an actual long war (funding a long insurgency is different). The Ukrainian state isn’t Russia’s problem and it’s a very big and growing problem.