Tightassed Little Cap Must Be Cutting Off The Flow Of BloodTo Ali Velshi's Conehead....,

caitlinjohnstone  |  In an appearance on the MSNBC show Velshi, The Modern War Institute’s John Spencer explicitly advocated direct US military conflict with Russia due to allegations of war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

“I’m ready to commit at this moment — unlike I was before this day — to put people in direct contact with Russia, to stop Russia,” Spencer said. “Call it peacekeeping. Call it what you will. We have to do more than provide weapons. And by ‘we,’ I mean the United States. Yes, we’ll do it as a coalition with lots of other people, but we are the example. So put boots on the ground, send weapons directly at Russia.”

Notice the bizarre verbal gymnastics being used by Spencer to obfuscate the fact that he is advocating a hot war with a nuclear superpower: “put people in direct contact with Russia,” “send weapons directly at Russia”. Who talks like that? He’s calling for the US military to fire upon the Russian military, he’s just saying it really weird.

To be clear this isn’t just some arms industry-funded think tanker saying this; The Modern War Institute is part of the Department of Military Instruction for the United States Military Academy, which is operated directly by the Pentagon.

Asked by the show’s host Ali Velshi what he thought of warnings that direct military confrontation with Russia could lead to nuclear war, Spencer said, “It is a huge risk, I understand that. But today is different.”

Velshi himself was much more to the point than his guest, both online and on social media.

“We are past the point of sanctions and strongly-worded condemnations and the seizing of oligarchs’ megayachts,” Velshi told his MSNBC audience. “If this is not the kind of moment that the United Nations and NATO and the UN and the G-20 and the Council of Europe and the G-7 were made for, what was the point of these alliances if not to stop this? The world cannot sit by as Vladimir Putin continues this reign of terror.”

“The turning point for the west and NATO will come when the sun rises over Kyiv on Sunday, and the war crimes against civilian non-combatants becomes visible to all,” Velshi said on Twitter over the weekend. “There is no more time for prevarication. If ‘never again’ means anything, then this is the time to act.”

Asked what specifically he meant by this, Velshi clarified that he was advocating “Direct military involvement.”

“Lines have been crossed and war crimes have been committed by Putin that make direct military intervention something NATO now must seriously consider,” Velshi added.

Victoria Nuland....,

RT  |  Russia is eager for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine, but it won’t accept any Western mediation during its talks with Kiev, the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

“We’re ready to give diplomacy a chance. That’s why we agreed to the talks, which are resuming in Istanbul,” Lavrov said during a video conference on Monday with the Serbian media. The discussions are scheduled to continue on Tuesday.

The Turkish government, which has good ties with both Russia and Ukraine, has put a great deal of effort into getting the two sides around the negotiating table, Lavrov explained. However, there's no need to include the EU or the US – which support Kiev in the conflict – in the peace process, according to the minister.

“There are many examples of times when the achievements of diplomacy were shattered by Western colleagues. They can’t be trusted anymore,” Lavrov opined.

“I wouldn’t want to see any shuttle diplomacy from our Western partners, because they’ve already done their ‘shuttling’ – in February 2014 in Ukraine and in February 2015 in Minsk,” he added.

In February 2014, the EU became the guarantor of the agreements between Ukraine’s then-president Viktor Yanukovych and the Maidan protesters in Kiev, Lavrov reminded viewers. “It was a pinnacle of diplomacy. But, the next morning, the opposition spat on that diplomacy, and the EU had to swallow it.”

Yanukovich ended up being deposed after violent clashes and fleeing the country, and the new Ukrainian authorities soon sent their military to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, where most of the population had refused to recognize the coup in the capital.

In September of the same year, the Minsk I agreement between the breakaway republics and Kiev was reached in the Belarusian capital, having been negotiated by Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France in the so-called Normandy Format. The deal called on the two sides to stop fighting, organize prisoner exchanges, allow deliveries of humanitarian aid, and withdraw heavy weaponry.

“The diplomacy then reached new heights in February 2015, when the agreements that were signed in Minsk ended the war in eastern Ukraine and opened the way to restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity by granting a special status to the Donbass,” the minister continued.

 

That Demented Syphilitic Hair Sniffer You Voted In To Office Protects Pedophiles...,

here is the text conversation between Hunter & Joe Biden. Natalie is Joe’s granddaughter/Hunter’s niece. Rudy Gulianni who viewed the laptop told us about it before the election- but of course we made him out to be an idiot. Our president is a pedo protector. 💔 pic.twitter.com/FqfoEJu0s7

— She Was A Stunner ✌🏼❤️🉑 (@Idontbelievey13) March 18, 2022

“The White House can’t just wash away the stink of Hunter Biden’s laptop” [New York Post]. “[A]s a grand jury in Delaware moves closer to potentially indicting Hunter, 52, over alleged tax evasion, money laundering and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, pressure is mounting on the president finally to explain his role in the international influence-peddling scheme run by his son and his brother Jim Biden while he was vice president. The laptop, along with evidence provided by Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski, and Treasury documents provided to a Senate inquiry, reveal millions of dollars flowing to the Biden family and associates from dubious foreign sources, including three flashpoint countries vital to US national security: Russia, Ukraine and China. Evidence also exists showing that Joe Biden financially benefited from his then-drug-addicted son’s overseas business dealings — perhaps by several million dollars. White House press secretary Jen Psaki played dumb last week and refused to answer questions from The Post’s Steven Nelson about how the president is navigating conflicts of interest during the Ukraine-Russia war when it comes to sanctioning people who have done business with his family. Specifically, Nelson asked about Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, who has not been sanctioned, but who allegedly wired $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to a firm associated with Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer. That wire was flagged in a suspicious activity report provided by the Treasury Department to a Senate Republican inquiry, chaired by Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson. Now, new evidence has emerged via the laptop showing that Baturina wired as much as $118 million to various offshoots of Rosemont Seneca Partners, the consulting firm co-founded by Hunter, Archer and John Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz.” • Hmm. I haven’t followed the detail on this. However, I believe The Bidens would say that the Biden family has form, and this is what it is.

Crackhead Zelensky Doing All His Fake-Heroic Stunting From The Safety Of Poland...,

johnhelmer |  The summit meeting of East European leaders, hosted in Kiev by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on March 15 was fabricated by the Polish government, with Polish secret service agents playing the part of journalists, and fake photographs of the meeting, press briefing, and train journey prepared by Zelensky’s press office.

The operation was designed by the Poles to promote their role in support of the Ukraine, the Ukrainian refugees, and in defence of Europe against Russia, and seek new European, American,  and NATO alliance funds and military equipment.

A according to the Ukrainian publicity, the operation was designed to promote the appearance that Zelensky’s regime is in control of Kiev, and to accelerate their application for admission to the European Union (EU).

The Anglo-American media have reported the meeting, as announced by Petr Fiala, the Czech  prime minister, with “the aim…to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence,”

The result of the summit meeting, according to the Financial Times in London, was “a show of European solidarity even as Russian shelling continued on residential neighbourhoods in the Ukrainian capital. The trip by the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia is the most high-profile visit to Kyiv since Russia invaded the country on February 24.”

“It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made,” the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced. “It is here that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance.”

Morawiecki and the western press were lying – there was no meeting in Kiev. Instead, the meeting was staged at the Polish rail junction town of Przemysl, 95 kilometres west of Lvov (Lviv), and 20 kms inside the Polish frontier with the Ukraine.

In a report published by the Associated Press (AP) bureau in Warsaw, “the long journey over land from Poland to Kyiv by Morawiecki, Poland’s deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Ministers Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Janez Jansa of Slovenia sent the message that most of Ukraine still remains in Ukrainian hands.”

The evidence gathered from sources in Warsaw and from analysis of the videos and photographs published on the meeting proves there was no “long journey”; no meeting in Kiev or in Lvov, the Galician region capital, which is the operating headquarters of the Ukrainian government. From the evidence provided by the Poles and also by the Zelensky’s publicity staff, it is now clear that only a small part of western Ukraine remains in Ukrainian hands.  Zelensky himself is now in Polish hands.

Is This Octogenarian Dementia Or Syphilis?

 

Illusion Warfare Report

 -Join me as i LARP my way onto the Hollywood movie set we know as Ukraine.

Will the matrix allow me to peak behind the curtains of a manufactured and manipulated world staged event?

The Journey begins…
On the 3/3 I took a flight from Luton, England to Krakow, Poland.

Via Poland seemed the easiest way into the Ukraine.

Note: all the 33’s.

Evan tho unvaxxed, I entered Poland with ease on the condition I left within 24 hours.

So I wasted no time, and took a train from Krakow to Przemysl.

The only sign of WAR was the name of the cafe’

Lights, Camera….ACTION!!!

Przemysl Train Station (the Refugee movie set)

A well planned stage managed route ensures the Ukrainians arriving are bottled necked and compressed into the ticket hall so the media can create the illusion of ‘hell on Earth’.

Visual effects are key!

Outside the Refugee train station, police vehicles leave the lights flashing.

Every 20 minutes, the sirens turn on and vehicle does a loop around the block.

Stage Management …

The ‘Video Village’ of Przemysl.
Here we find the director and producer of the refugee movie.

All staged photos need good lighting.

I am unable to find a hostel or hotel,
full of refugees you ask?

No! All the hotels in this town are taken up by the press

Whilst these scumbags sleep in luxury, poor Ukrainians are left to sleep at the railway station.

Zelenskyy: The Servant Of The People

chesno |   The financial statements from the Servant of the People indicate that the party collected 226 million hryvnias (~$8 million USD) in donations while Zelenskyy and his associates’ election accounts collected 200 million hryvnias (~$7 million USD).

These numbers themselves seem relatively unremarkable, but the sources and types of donations are much more interesting.

Chesno reported that from September 2018 to September 2019 only 94 people donated to Servant of the People. Of the 94 people, most of these were entrepreneurs or sole proprietors. Most of the donations came from Kyiv, followed by donations from Odessa and Dnipro.

Chesno also found that 44 legal entities donated to the Servant of the People and Zelenskyy, with 34 of these entities donating 3 million hryvnias ($105,000 USD), which is just under the 3.3 million hryvnia ($120,000) limit placed on donations. The majority of these donations came from either Kyiv or Odessa.

More than 99% of all donations were more than 100,000 hryvnias ($3,500 USD); only two donations of less than 10,000 hryvnias ($350) were received in this time period.

To contextualize these figures, the minimum wage in Ukraine is 6,000 hryvnias per month ($220 USD) and the median salary in Ukraine is around 21,000 hryvnias ($775 USD).

This means that the majority of donations received by Zelenskyy and Servant of the People were more than what most Ukrainians make over five or six months of full-time work.

Chesno also found that some of the 94 personal donations came from questionable sources. Chesno interviewed Tetyana Staneva, who lives in a village in Odessa and has no business registered in her name. She donated 1.5 million hryvnias ($52,000 USD) to the Servant of the People party, telling Chesno, “It’s not just my money, I just sent it. This is a group of like-minded people, we did it together.” It should be noted that this is against Ukrainian law, which says that individual citizen must make financial contributions to political groups personally, and not as a collective.

Investigators identified one of the 44 entities that donated as Yaroslava Reklama, LLC, registered to a 22-year old cook named Yaroslav Kuzka who works at one of Kyiv’s restaurants. Yaroslava Reklama LLC, transferred the maximum donation of 3.3 million hryvnias ($120,000 USD) to Servant of the People. Upon investigating the address to which Yaroslava Reklama LLC was registered, journalists found that tenants in the area had never heard of the company.

Another company, Prom Import LLC, was registered to a woman named Juliana Kuku. She complained on her social media accounts that business was “not going well”, but at roughly the same time, made a 500,000 hryvnia ($16,000 USD) donation to Servant of the People.

Chesno also found that of the 44 entities that donated to Servant of the People, four of them changed their addresses within two days of one another in December 2018, leading investigators to conclude that many of the donors were likely linked.

It is perhaps remarkable to consider that although only 94 persons and 44 legal entities donated to Servant of the People, that it grew to controlling 254 of 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada despite not existing less than six months before.

Did Anybody Even Pretend To Imagine Zelensky Was More Than A Juan Guido Type Trick?

nakedcapitalism |  Let’s begin with the money man.

The Billionaire: Igor Kolomoyskyi

Long-time Naked Capitalism readers will recall that our own Richard Smith introduced us to Igor Kolomoyskyi[2] eight years ago, in 2014:

Kolomoyskyi is one of the oligarchs charged with holding down the Eastern provinces of Ukraine[3], and recently mocked Putin, reputedly sensitive about his height, as a “schizophrenic shortarse” (apologies for the English intonation: American alternatives are invited); definitely a bridge-burning moment. Putin, meanwhile, shut down as much of Kolomoyskyi ’s bank as he could, in Crimea and Moscow. I’m not sure who started it, but we can certainly mark it down as a first-rate spat.

While that was brewing up, Kolomoyskyi might well have wanted something that looked an American protector, and got it, in the form of the VP’s son[, Hunter Biden]. Another guess: Kolomoyskyi is far too ebulliently Jewish to look like a neo-Nazi. A US connection with Kolomoyskyi might play well in circles keen to counter Russian complaints that the interim Kiev regime is dominated by “Fascists”.

No, I’m not going down this Hunter Biden rathole; those are not the transactions I am interested in now. I will note in passing that Kolomoyskyi ‘s style could be considered — let’s just go ahead and say it — crude. Kolomoyskyi and his running buddy, Gennadiy Bogolyubov, were business partners and founders of a thing called Privat Group:

Kolomoyskyi and Bogolyubo]fostered strong reputations as corporate raiders in the mid-2000s, becoming notorious for a series of hostile takeovers. Hostile takeovers Ukrainian style, that is, which often included the active involvement of Privat’s quasi-military teams. These schemes included, among others, a literal raid on the Kremenchuk steel plant in 2006, in which hundreds of hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols and chainsaws forcibly took over the plant.

As of this writing, Kolomoyskyi was #1750 on the Forbes billionaires list, with a real time net worth (assuming Forbes didn’t outsource the data gathering to CDC) of $1.8 billion. Kolomoyskyi has also fallen out with the United States, amusingly including the Atlantic Council, but I assume all these tiresome bureaucratic obstacles will at some point be swept away, so that’s another rathole I’m not going down. Suffice to say that Kolomoyskyi still has his billions, which I expect go farther in Ukraine than they would here, and isn’t at all shy about funding thugs. Kolomoyskyi, like any billionaire, holds a portfolio of projects in the political field. I don’t know how many he has in toto, but there are at least two. Let’s look at them.

How Does A Worm Like Zelensky Live With Itself?

southfront |  What can we deduce from this short interview:

1. Russia will prevail and Ukraine will lose.
2. Ukraine is going to be partitioned. Putin is going to create the buffer he needs to assure his country’s security.
3. Whoever governs the western part of Ukraine will be required to declare their “neutrality” (in writing) and reject any offers for NATO membership. If they violate that promise, they will be removed by force.

But here’s the important thing: All of the main actors in this fiasco knew from the very beginning that Ukraine had no chance of defeating the Russian army. That was a foregone conclusion. So–what we want to know– is why Zelenskyy didn’t take steps to avoid the tragedy before it unfolded?

The answer to this question helps to reveal ‘who Zelenskyy really is’.

Ask yourself this: Why didn’t Zelenskyy negotiate with Putin when he had the chance? Why didn’t he pull back his 60,000 troops from the east? Why didn’t he stop Washington’s weapons shipments? Why didn’t he implement the Minsk Treaty? Why didn’t he reject NATO’s offer for membership?

Finally, why was so intent on doing the things that he knew would anger Moscow and increase the likelihood of a war?

These questions are not hard to answer.

Zelenskyy has been acting on orders from Washington from the get-go. We know that. He’s also been implementing Washington’s agenda not his own and certainly not Ukraine’s. We know that, too. But that does not absolve him from responsibility. After all, he is a full-grown adult capable of distinguishing between right from wrong. He knows what he’s doing, and he knows that it’s wrong; worse than wrong, it’s inexcusable. He’s sending men to die in a war he knows they can’t win; he’s inflicting incalculable suffering and injury on his own people for no reason at all; and –worst of all– he’s cleared the way for the dissolution of Ukraine itself, the country he was sworn to defend. That country is going to be broken into bits as part of a final settlement with Russia, and Zelenskyy will share a good part of the blame.

How does a man like this live with himself?

I'd Like To Know The Ukraine Hand Buried Elbow Deep In Brandon's Nasty Old Cornhole...,

CTH  |  Everyone knows Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is an empty vessel.  He carries himself as a generally unintelligent fellow with a sub-par IQ and a childish demeanor that is often inappropriate.   However, recently due to the increased attention upon Canada as they descend into lunatic leftism, the role of Trudeau as a puppet has become more evident.

His Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, is well known to people here for her prior key role in the creation of the USMCA trade agreement, her busybody demeanor and her snarky ideological annoyances.  However, Chrystia is also the person who puts the words in Justin’s mouth, literally.

Watch a few seconds of this video from Trudeau’s statements about Ukraine yesterday and pay attention to the mannerisms of Freeland as the Canadian Prime Minister reads his prepared remarks.  Watch her closely and what you will notice is that Freeland wrote the remarks.  She is visibly saying them in her head while physically mirroring the exact cadence Trudeau uses as he delivers her script.

The Burden Of Proof Is ALWAYS On The One Making The Claim...,

caitlinjohnstone |  Well you’ll be shocked to learn that, while the Ukraine invasion we’ve been told for weeks was happening any day now still has not occurred, the US and UK have declared that Russia attacked Ukraine in an invisible and unverifiable way for which the evidence is secret.

“The White House blamed Russia on Friday for this week’s cyberattacks targeting Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks and warned of the potential for more significant disruptions in the days ahead,” AP reports. “Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said the U.S. had rapidly linked Tuesday’s attacks to Russian military intelligence officers.”

“Technical information analysis shows the GRU was almost certainly involved in disruptive DDoS attacks,” adds a statement from the UK Foreign Office.

No evidence for this claim has been provided beyond the assertive tone with which American and British officials have uttered it, but that likely won’t stop arguments from western narrative managers that this “attack” justifies immediate economic sanctions.

You’ve probably also heard by now that President Biden announced at a press briefing that Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine and violently topple Kyiv “in the coming days,” citing only “intelligence”.

“What reason do you believe he’s considering that option at all?” a reporter asked Biden after his speech.

“We have a significant intelligence capability, thank you very much,” the president answered, and made his exit.

As we were reminded earlier this month in an interesting exchange between State Department spinmeister Ned Price and AP’s Matt Lee, US officials firmly believe that simply placing assertions next to the word “intelligence” should be considered rock solid proof that those assertions are true, and the press are expected to play along with this.

And indeed, a large percentage of the political/media class is responding to Biden’s unevidenced claim that Putin has decided to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Ukraine as though that invasion is actually happening.

 

Russia Is In Total Control Of The Narrative And The Timeline

consortiumnews  |  “I am here today,” Blinken said, trying to remove himself from Powell, “not to start a war, but to prevent one.”

But like Powell, Blinken produced no evidence at all to the U.N. to back up his assertion that Russia is “preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days,” even though he could have. Rather than produce fake evidence, as Powell had, he just produced nothing at all.

Blinken only had words, blithely accusing Russia of seeking “to manufacture a pretext” for an invasion of Ukraine, whether by fabricating a terrorist bombing inside Russia; (a jab at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been accused of false-flag attacks of Moscow apartment buildings to generate support for the Second Chechen War in 1999); the discovery of a mass grave; staging a drone strike against civilians or the use of chemical weapons.

After such a “false flag,” Russian would call for a military response “to defend Russian citizens or ethnic Russians in Ukraine” and would then invade Ukraine, Blinken said.

In the past, when the U.S. took to the floor of the U.N. Security Council to hurl accusations of malfeasance at Russia, American diplomats would present incontrovertible intelligence to back up its claims.

This was done in October 1962, when Adlai Stevenson showed the world U-2 photographs proving the Russians had deployed missiles in Cuba. Again, in September 1983, Jeane Kirkpatrick played audio tapes of intercepted communications which proved Russian military aircraft shot down Korean Airlines flight 007.

Blinken brought no such proof. His was just a verbal assurance that this was not a repeat of Colin Powell’s performance. This time, the U.S. should just be trusted to tell the truth.

U.S. Intelligence Community Declares Zerohedge A Russian Malinformation Front

AP  |  Officials described for the first time what they say are direct communications between Russian spies and the editors or directors of the media outlets. They did not release records of the communications.

FSB officers had directed Konstantin Knyrik, the head of NewsFront, to write stories specifically damaging to Ukraine’s image, U.S. officials alleged. They said Knyrik has been praised by senior FSB officers for his work and requested derogatory information that he could use against the Caucasian Knot, a website that covers news in the mostly Muslim republics of southern Russia and neighboring countries such as Georgia.

The editor of PolitNavigator sent reports of published articles to the FSB, an official said. And the managing editor of Antifashist allegedly was directed at least once by the FSB to delete material from the site.

PolitNavigator’s editor, Sergey Stepanov, said Washington turns a blind eye to what he says are Ukraine’s anti-democratic actions and instead labels those who point them out “anti-Ukrainian propagandists” and “agents of the FSB.”

“I would like to believe that American journalism will rise above the hysteria provoked by officials,” he added.

The Strategic Culture Foundation is accused of controlling the websites Odna Rodyna and Fondsk. The foundation’s director, Vladimir Maximenko, has met with SVR handlers multiple times since 2014, officials alleged.

Several of the sites have small social media followings and may not appear influential at first glance, noted Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy. But falsehoods or propaganda narratives often start small before they’re amplified by larger actors, he said.

“You see the narrative enter the information space, and it’s very hard to see where it goes from there,” he said.

A manifesto published on Zero Hedge’s site defends its use of anonymous authors and proclaims its goal is “to liberate oppressed knowledge.” Many articles are published under the name Tyler Durden, also a character in the movie “Fight Club.”

The website was an early amplifier of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. An Associated Press investigation determined the site played a pivotal role in advancing the unproven theory that China engineered the virus as a bioweapon. It’s also posted articles touting natural immunity to COVID-19 and unproven treatments.

Zero Hedge was also cited in a recent report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue that examined how far-right extremists are harnessing COVID-19 misinformation to expand their reach. Twitter briefly suspended Zero Hedge’s account in 2020 but reinstated it a few months later, saying it “made an error in our enforcement action in this case.”

The U.S. moving to name the website could inform some people who come across its content online, Schafer said.

“My guess is that most of the people who are loyal Zero Hedge followers naturally are inclined to mistrust the U.S. government anyway,” he said, “and so this announcement is probably not going to undermine most of Zero Hedge’s core support.”

Even Declaring Discretionary Martial Law Canada's Political Leadership Is Too Fruity To Take Seriously

cbc  |   Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told his caucus he will invoke the never-before-used Emergencies Act to give the federal government extra powers to handle anti-vaccine mandate protests across the country, sources say.

Those sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the prime minister informed the premiers of his decision this morning.

The Emergencies Act, which replaced the War Measures Act in the 1980s, defines a national emergency as a temporary "urgent and critical situation" that "seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it."

It gives special powers to the prime minister to respond to emergency scenarios affecting public welfare (natural disasters, disease outbreaks), public order (civil unrest), international emergencies or war emergencies.

• Government considering emergency powers with 'appropriate caution,' federal minister says

• Opportunity to end convoy protest peacefully is slipping away, experts say

The act grants cabinet the ability to "take special temporary measures that may not be appropriate in normal times" to cope with an "urgent and critical situation" and the resulting fallout. It is still subject to the protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Once cabinet declares an emergency, it takes effect right away — but the government still needs to go to Parliament within seven days to get approval. If either the Commons or the Senate votes against the motion, the emergency declaration is revoked.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Monday that while he sees the prime minister's decision to turn to the Emergencies Act as "proof of a failure of leadership," he will support the declaration — which should secure its passage through a minority Parliament.

"The reason why we got to this point is because the prime minister let the siege in Ottawa go on for weeks and weeks without actually doing anything about it, allowed the convoy to shut down borders without responding appropriately," he said.

Joe Rogan - Just An Entertainer After All....,

businessinsider  |  Vanity Fair, which first reported on the Obamas' dissatisfaction with Spotify, noted that they are most interested in producing shows featuring fresh voices. 

Spotify has spent well over $1 billion to diversify beyond music content and into the broader audio market, scooping up podcast studios like Gimlet Media and The Ringer and signing exclusive deals with talent including Rogan and Dax Shepard. 

A big piece of its strategy has been to ink development deals with bold-faced names like the Obamas and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who have yet to produce a show for Spotify outside of a 2020 holiday special. 

So far, the strategy appears to have worked. Spotify said in October, citing third-party data from Edison Research, that it now ranks ahead of Apple Podcasts as the most popular podcast app in the US. 

But there have also been challenges, including a cultural reckoning within Gimlet Media linked to its popluar"Reply All" podcast as well as the shuttering of Spotify's in-house podcast studio, known internally as Studio 4. More recently, the Rogan controversy has led some Spotify podcasters to call out the company. 

Brené Brown, for instance, said she would take a pause from producing new episodes as she sought to "better understand the organization's misinformation policy," and Wendy Zukerman, host of Gimlet show "Science Vs." said she would stop making new episodes of the show except to counteract misinformation on the platform. 

The Obamas' podcasting deal with Spotify followed their initial move into entertainment one year earlier, when they announced the formation of Higher Ground and its multi-year film and TV deal with Netflix . They are behind the streamer's Oscar-winning documentary "American Factory" and Kevin Hart drama "Fatherhood," among other projects.

I Fully B'lee Brandon And His MSM Proxies Smear Anybody Who Kwestins Them...,

caitlinjohnstone  |  One thing I’ve been meaning to write about these last few days has been the way mass media pundits have been insinuating or outright asserting that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is literally an agent of the Russian government.

Carlson has been accused of promoting Russian propaganda by mainstream narrative managers for frequently criticizing the Biden administration’s hawkish posture toward Russia regarding the entirely unsubstantiated claim that Moscow is preparing to launch an unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. We’ve been seeing things like Anderson Cooper innocently musing that “It is striking how neatly Kremlin propaganda seems to dovetail with Carlson’s talking points” and this CNN segment from December with Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter and tinfoil hat Russiagater Julia Ioffe wondering aloud about why Russian state media seem to be so fond of Carlson. By mid-January, Democratic Party operatives were openly demanding that Carlson be investigated for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

“This isn’t journalism, it’s an ongoing FARA violation. Tucker Carlson needs to be prosecuted as an unregistered agent of the Russian Federation and treason under Article 3, Sec. 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution for aiding an enemy in hybrid warfare against the United States,” tweeted former DNC official Alexandra Chalupa, best known for colluding with the Ukrainian government in 2016 on opposition research against Donald Trump.

This isn’t journalism, it’s an ongoing FARA violation. Tucker Carlson needs to be prosecuted as an unregistered agent of the Russian Federation and treason under Article 3, Sec. 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution for aiding an enemy in hybrid warfare against the United States. https://t.co/5JkLuCKoBn

— Alexandra Chalupa (@AlexandraChalup) January 19, 2022

The accusations and insinuations increased, eventually leading to Carlson outright denying being a Russian agent in a recent interview with The New York Times saying, “I’ve never been to Russia, I don’t speak Russian. Of course I’m not an agent of Russia.”

As you would expect, this denial was then spun by the same demented mainstream pundits who’ve spent the last five years being wrong about Russia as evidence that Carlson is a Russian agent.

“Tucker Carlson told The New York Times he’s not a Russian agent amid controversy over his pro-Kremlin stance,” blares a headline by Business Insider.

 

Prince Andrew Blames Underage Girls For Making Him F*ck Underage Girls...,

pagesix |  Prince Andrew’s attorneys made the shocking claim that the woman suing him for allegedly raping her when she was a teenager was actually a sex trafficker tasked with procuring “slutty girls” for pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The Duke of York’s legal team made the accusation against accuser Virginia Giuffre in a Friday motion to dismiss her Manhattan federal court suit against him.

In a section of the legal filing, Andrew, 61, alleged Giuffre, 38, was “involved the willful recruitment and trafficking of young girls for sexual abuse,” by the financier, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail before he could be tried for assaulting underaged girls.

“She was like the head b—h. She’d have like nine or 10 girls she used to bring to him. She never looked like she was being held captive,” Philip Guderyon, a former boyfriend of Giuffre’s, was quoted as saying in the court document.

Crystal Figueroa, whose brother also dated Giuffre, said the accuser asked her for help finding victims for Epstein, according to the court filing.

“She [Giuffre] would say to me, ‘Do you know any girls who are kind of slutty?,’” lawyers alleged Figueroa said.

Giuffre has alleged she was recruited into Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation in 2000 by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of procuring women and underage girls for the billionaire, and is awaiting trial in Manhattan federal court.

Giuffre claims Andrew sexually assaulted her three times — including once in Manhattan — at the behest of Epstein, charges the disgraced royal has denied.

The prince’s latest offensive accused her of fabricating the charges for a “payday,” while also referencing Giuffre’s 2009 agreement with Epstein, which lawyers said should block any legal action she could take against Andrew.

 

Eugene Robinson Makes A Responsible Negroe Attack On Kyrie Irving

WaPo  |  Kyrie Irving is a thrillingly talented basketball player, a former Rookie of the Year, a seven-time All-Star and a gold medalist for Team USA. But I look forward to not watching him work his magic this season — as long as he refuses to do the right thing and get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

This isn’t the first time Irving has courted controversy. But the skepticism he and other holdouts have propagated and the wishy-washy stances even some of their vaccinated colleagues have taken, are worth addressing seriously — and not just for what they say about the fight against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The best way to show respect for athletes as political actors and philanthropists is to push back when they’re wrong — especially when the stakes are this high.

Irving plays for the Brooklyn Nets, and the city of New York mandates that Nets players be vaccinated before they can play in their home arenas. Irving is the only stubbornly unvaccinated Net. Since he would have to sit out roughly half the team’s schedule, Nets management has wisely decided it’s best he not play at all.

A performative iconoclast, Irving posted an I’m-the-victim justification on Instagram Live. “It’s bigger than the game,” he said. “I came into the season thinking I was just going to be able to play ball. . . . Why are you putting it on me?”

Cue the violins.

I don’t respect his “choice” at all. As for why we’re “putting it on” him, we are battling together to defeat a highly infectious virus that has killed more than 720,000 Americans. We have a trio of safe and effective vaccines that slow the spread of the virus and confer miraculous protection against serious illness and death. Irving’s choice threatens not just his own health but also, should he be infected, that of his fellow players, his coaches and trainers, the referees who call the games, and the fans who come to see the Nets play.

Irving clearly understands the privileges that come with his stardom, including the ability to get millions of people to listen to whatever he has to say. A few years ago, he drew worldwide attention by claiming, with a straight face, that he believed the world is flat. “I do research on both sides,” he said in 2017. “I’m not against anyone that thinks the Earth is round. I’m not against anyone that thinks it’s flat. I just love hearing the debate.”

He later apologized. “At the time, I was, like, huge into conspiracies,” he said. “And everybody’s been there.”

That’s precisely the problem. Far too many Americans are “huge into conspiracies,” and it is deeply irresponsible for famous athletes to encourage them to go down the anti-vaccine rabbit hole.

Sanjay Gupta Equivocating: Here Is A Headline: Joe Rogan Agreed To Get Vaccinated

CNN |  In today's highly segmented media world, most of the people who watch and listen to me every day on CNN have already received and accepted the message about the utility of vaccines, the importance of masks and how we can all work together to put an end to this pandemic. So I realized that if I was serious about trying to communicate public health, I needed to go to a less comfortable place. I needed to go into the lion's den and accept an invitation to sit down with Joe Rogan for more than three hours.

I don't think I have ever had a conversation that long with anyone. Seriously -- think about that. We sat in a windowless podcast booth with two sets of headphones and microphones, and a few feet between us. Not a single interruption. No cellphones. No distractions. No bathroom breaks.

 

At a time when there is a desire for shorter, crisper content -- responding to abbreviated human attention spans -- one of the most popular podcasts in the country features conversations that last exceptionally long and go particularly deep.

 

Many friends cautioned me against accepting Joe's invitation. "There is little room for reasonable conversations anymore," one person told me. "He is a brawler and doesn't play fair," another warned. In fact, when I told Joe early in the podcast that I didn't agree with his apparent views on vaccines against Covid, ivermectin and many things in between, part of me thought the MMA, former Taekwondo champion might hurtle himself across the table and throttle my neck. But, instead he smiled, and off we went.

 

OK, I am embellishing here, but Joe Rogan is the one guy in the country I wanted to exchange views with in a real dialogue -- one that could potentially be among the most important conversations of this entire pandemic. After listening to his podcasts for a while now, I wanted to know: Was Joe simply a sower of doubt, a creator of chaos? Or was there something more? Was he asking questions that begged to be asked, fueled by necessary suspicion and skepticism?

 

It wasn't what Joe Rogan thinks that most interested me, it was how he thinks. That is what I really wanted to understand.

 

Truth is, I have always been a naturally skeptical person myself. One of my personal heroes, the physicist Edwin Hubble, said a scientist has a "healthy skepticism, suspended judgment and disciplined imagination, not only about other people's ideas but also about their own."

 

 

 

 

Steven Pinker: Few Things More Cynical And Destructive Than A Professional Elite Ass-Kisser

Guardian |   On a recent afternoon, Steven Pinker, the cognitive psychologist and bestselling author of upbeat books about human progress, was sitting in his summer home on Cape Cod, thinking about Bill Gates. Pinker was gearing up to record a radio series on critical thinking for the BBC, and he wanted the world’s fourth richest man to join him for an episode on the climate emergency. “People tend to approach challenges in one of two ways – as problem-solving or as conflict,” Pinker, who appreciates the force of a tidy dichotomy, said. “You can think of it as Bill versus Greta. And I’m very much in Bill’s camp.”

A few weeks earlier, Gates had been photographed in Manhattan carrying a copy of Pinker’s soon to be published 12th book, Rationality, which inspired the BBC series. “We sent it to his people,” Pinker said. Pinker is an avid promoter of his own work, and for the past 25 years he has had a great deal to promote. Since the 1990s, he has written a string of popular books on language, the mind and human behaviour, but in the past decade, he has become best known for his counterintuitive take on the state of the world. In the shadow of the financial crisis, while other authors were writing books about how society was profoundly broken, Pinker took the opposite tack, arguing that things were, in fact, better than ever.

In The Better Angels of Our Nature, published in 2011, he gathered copious amounts of data to show that violence had declined across human history, in large part because of the emergence of markets and states. Understandably, the book struck a chord with people who move markets and run states. Gates called it “the most inspiring book I’ve ever read”, and Mark Zuckerberg included it on a list of what to read at Davos. Then, in 2018, at the height of Donald Trump’s presidency and amid the accelerating climate crisis, Pinker published a follow-up, Enlightenment Now, which expanded his argument. It wasn’t just that life had become less violent; thanks to the application of science and reason since the 18th century, the human condition had dramatically improved in health, wealth and liberty, too. Bill Clinton had Enlightenment Now on his bedside table, and Gates declared it his “new favourite book of all time”.

“Bill’s got a pretty nimble mind, so I think he can riff on anything,” Pinker said, imagining how Gates would fare on the radio show. He was looking out over Cape Cod Bay from the upper deck of his house, which he shares with his wife, the philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. From the bottom deck, a staircase of more than 100 steps runs down to a beach, like one of Pinker’s trademark graphs depicting the decline in some measure of human misery. Pinker sees the world in broadly utilitarian terms. “A quantitative mindset, despite its nerdy aura, is in fact the morally enlightened one,” he writes in Enlightenment Now. On this basis, he has ranked Gates, who has spent roughly $50bn on philanthropy, near the top of a moral hierarchy crowned by people such as Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace prize-winning agronomist credited with saving more than a billion lives through his innovations in agriculture.

Pinker’s positive spin on the world has brought him into the orbit of many powerful people. On his phone, under the heading Politicians, he keeps a list of the two dozen or so heads of state, royalty and other leaders who have asked him for an audience. They include the prime minister of his native Canada, Justin Trudeau (“That was the greatest thrill for a Canadian boy”) and Mauricio Macri, then the president of Argentina (“I got to stand on the Evita balcony”). In 2016, Pinker co-authored an article for the New York Times with Colombia’s then-president, Juan Manuel Santos, two months before Santos won the Nobel Peace prize for helping to end the country’s 50-year-long guerrilla war. He has twice been a guest at Bohemian Grove, which has been described as an off-the-record summer camp for male members of the American establishment. He told me he had met some amazing people there, like Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, the former secretaries of state to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively. He seemed to enjoy both the absurdity of the experience and its purpose – to bring powerful people into contact with one another.