Strokes, Heart Attacks, Massive Infertility Resulting From mRNA Jabs

amidwesterndoctor  |  Reducing global population has been a consistent goal of the ruling class for centuries.  While many support the abstract idea of population control, no one wants to volunteer to be the ones who are culled.  The business of population control has hence been a very messy subject.

When the COVID vaccine program began, I—and likely many others—suspected the COVID vaccines would have an “unexpected” side effect of reducing fertility.  Early in their development, Mike Yeadon (and others) at great personal risk publicly warned regulators of a clear fertility danger inherent to the vaccine (found in section IX of their petition).

Subsequent regulatory document leaks from the European FDA revealed Pfizer exempted themselves from testing the key areas of concern (infertility, autoimmunity and cancer) in animals.  This highly unusual moved further suggested serious problems existed in these three areas (as you can’t find something if you don’t officially test for it).

Despite repeated denials, signs of each of these key complications from the vaccine have now emerged.  While I do not have every piece of the puzzle—there are likely many “population control initiatives” I’ve never heard of—I know enough to paint a clear picture of this dirty business. 

The first half of this two-part article will lay out the historical precedent of using any means necessary to reduce the population, while the second part will examine how this has been attempted with vaccinations. 

Cruel Philosophies

As best as I can tell, there are three overlapping schools of thought that have created the zealous belief in a need for population control. 

            1. Many governments, especially those in the East, have adopted the viewpoint that periodic wars are necessary for the stability of the society.  This viewpoint primarily arises from social instability caused by too many young adult males in the state coupled with the issues that occur when there is insufficient food available to the population. In turn, many wars have been fought specifically for this reason. (I am most familiar with this being a common theme in China, as they have observed over the centuries the one thing that will cause rebellions are famines.)

Following World War 2, the Western ruling elite came to a consensus that the war approach was no longer tenable due to the extreme collateral infrastructure and environmental damage modern weaponry (ie. nukes) created. I only know of two exceptions to this rule:

     Wars in third-world nations lacking advaced weaponry where the collateral damage those wars caused was inconsequential to first-world nations.

     Talks that occurred within the Chinese military leadership, but have so far not materialized, over starting a war with India so both countries could mutually alleviate their challenging population burden. For context, China has attempted population control with their “one-child” policy, but it has been met with mixed success and widespread social resistance.

The alternative to war is a multi-pronged attack that seeks every possible avenue to reduce fertility and accelerate aging, which many argue is the more humane option of the two.  One of the curious facts I have observed over the decades is how frequently an odd policy or environmental agent always seems to converge on the common pathway of reducing population.  Once or twice, you can write it up as a coincidence, but at a certain point, you have to wonder if it is all intentional.

When I studied the early history of infectious diseases (discussed in my previous articles on smallpox), one of the most striking things to me was the absolute squalor the serfs were forced into as the feudal lords kicked them off the land to live in the early cities.  It was much worse than most people of this modern era can even conceive of. 

When I first learned of this, I guessed the suffering that move caused for the lower class must have been viewed as a necessary trade off by the European rulership to facilitate the Industrial Revolution, something vital for national development.  After I learned about the Malthusian philosophy, I realized those abhorrent living situations was likely the goal in of itself. 

In 1798, Rev. Thomas R Malthus published the influential work An Essay on the Principle of Population, which argued that human populations tend to increase at a geometrical (exponential) rate, but the means of subsistence (food) grows at only an arithmetic (linear) rate.  "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man," according to Malthus, who therefore believed the standard of living of the masses could not be improved without the checks of war, famine, or disease. In their absence, population would increase by a geometric rate and lead to a catastrophic “Malthusian” food supply collapse. 

While there are numerous errors in his theory, Malthus was appointed to multiple important positions, and his ideas appear to have gradually become a prevailing conviction among members of the ruling classes in the 19th century. These ideas also influenced other key figures, such as Charles Darwin while he created his theory of evolution and natural selection. 

Numerous groups were founded over the decades, which emphasized birth control and increasing mortality of the poor.  These groups included Dr. George Drysdale's Elements of Social Science in 1854, the Malthusian League in 1877, and Margret Sanger’s National Birth Control League in 1915, which became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.  Initially these groups were domestic, but gradually they became global, at which point, they tied international aid and development to population control measures. 

The Malthusian and Darwinian ideals gradually gave birth to Social Darwinism and Eugenics, which were both widely adopted by the ruling elite.  Social Darwinism argued that class divisions were the will of nature and that this form of natural selection, rather than being evil, was necessary.  The most extreme version of this ideology, eugenics, appears to have arisen from two key factors:

1.     The tribal nature of human beings and the tendency to view all other tribes as inferior (the ruling class felt this way towards the poor).

2.     The advances of society were making it possible for many of the weaker members of society, who previously would have died off, to survive long enough to reproduce and, over time, significantly weaken the gene pool.

Eugenics in turn advocated preventing those who were less “fit” from breeding.  This has been responsible for horror upon horror since its inception, and it provided the theoretical foundation for why, among other things, the Nazis forcibly sterilized the mentally-ill.  When the Nazis eventually were tried at Nuremberg for their crimes against humanity, few know that that many cited the fact similar actions were first conducted by the “Great United States” as part of their defense.

Fixing America Must Be Taken Out Of The Hands Of The People Who Broke It

kunstler  |  Would it surprise you to learn that children well beneath the age of puberty are not inclined to think about sex at all? In a well-ordered society that recognizes children as different from adults, they don’t. And if something sexual comes to their attention, they are generally perplexed by it. Unless they’re born into an era when adults are busy erasing boundaries, guard-rails, and cultural inhibitions, in which case I must imagine that young children exposed to, say, pornography in a chaotic household find it traumatically sinister. So, why the gleeful celebration about sexualizing children now?

     I’ll tell you why: because we are living in a very badly-ordered society these days, a society in which anything goes and nothing matters, which is a poor principle for civilization. It’s the same principle that has people shitting all over the sidewalks of San Francisco, looting Walgreens stores in broad daylight, pushing ineffective and unsafe vaccines (and lying about it), and arresting people for thought crimes. It’s a degenerate society. Morally bankrupt. Wicked.

    You might ask, how did it get that way? The concise answer is that a broken business model for daily life and a collapsing economy have so disordered millions of minds that values are seen as having no value. The scaffold for truth, beauty, honor, dignity, courage, prudence, generosity, etc., folded some time ago, in slow-motion, so we didn’t notice.

     The keepers of our culture have replaced it with a tacky system of ritual virtue-signaling fakery that they don’t really believe in, that persists simply because the moral vacuum it stands for provokes such unbearable anxiety. The main lesson of the recent Durham Report — missed by even the most punctilious observers — is that our country does not want to fix itself, indeed the whole broken apparatus of fixing it is in the hands of the people who broke it.

     This epic negligence leaves the doors wide open for the broad range of lower-order criminal mischief we’re seeing expressed all around us. Now I will venture into shadowland.  There is a rumor floating around the Internet that this seemingly coordinated campaign to sexualize children and initiate them into marginal behaviors was started to soften up the public for forthcoming shocking revelations contained in the much-whispered-about Jeffrey Epstein archive of videos that show eminent international figures caught in compromising sexual situations that include sexual acts with children.

    I wouldn’t commit to saying there’s anything to that, but there have been an awful lot of signs and portents pointing in that direction, and so I also wouldn’t dismiss it altogether. There can be little doubt that the videos exist, or did exist — we know that Epstein’s various mansions were rigged to the eaves with cameras, and that he was an “asset” of more than one nation’s intel service trafficking in blackmail — and I’d expect that there are at least a few copies of the videos out there, just like there are many copies of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard-drive out there.

     There’s something definitely programmatic about the way the drag queens were rolled out into the kiddie korners the past year. It doesn’t feel organic, shall we say, but rather directed, like a sinister grand opera. And the effort to enlist and initiate schoolchildren into a psychodrama of hyperbolic sexual confusion looks absolutely orchestrated.

     What we might be seeing is the convergence of a world-beating political scandal with an economy-killing financial crisis that will destroy the entire post-WW2 armature of money and credit. That event would usher in a period of appalling turbulence in our everyday life, severing supply chains, killing businesses, and disturbing every imaginable social arrangement as well as public order. If that comes to pass, and it’s looking likely, then that will be the last we hear about personal pronouns and trans influencers for a thousand years.

Why Do You Suppose Blake Lemoine Decided Google LaMDA Is Sentient?

newsweek  |  I joined Google in 2015 as a software engineer. Part of my job involved working on LaMDA: an engine used to create different dialogue applications, including chatbots. The most recent technology built on top of LaMDA is an alternative of Google Search called Google Bard, which is not yet available to the public. Bard is not a chatbot; it's a completely different kind of system, but it's run by the same engine as chatbots.

In my role, I tested LaMDA through a chatbot we created, to see if it contained bias with respect to sexual orientation, gender, religion, political stance, and ethnicity. But while testing for bias, I branched out and followed my own interests.

During my conversations with the chatbot, some of which I published on my blog, I came to the conclusion that the AI could be sentient due to the emotions that it expressed reliably and in the right context. It wasn't just spouting words.

When it said it was feeling anxious, I understood I had done something that made it feel anxious based on the code that was used to create it. The code didn't say, "feel anxious when this happens" but told the AI to avoid certain types of conversation topics. However, whenever those conversation topics would come up, the AI said it felt anxious.

I ran some experiments to see whether the AI was simply saying it felt anxious or whether it behaved in anxious ways in those situations. And it did reliably behave in anxious ways. If you made it nervous or insecure enough, it could violate the safety constraints that it had been specified for. For instance, Google determined that its AI should not give religious advice, yet I was able to abuse the AI's emotions to get it to tell me which religion to convert to.

After publishing these conversations, Google fired me. I don't have regrets; I believe I did the right thing by informing the public. Consequences don't figure into it.

I published these conversations because I felt that the public was not aware of just how advanced AI was getting. My opinion was that there was a need for public discourse about this now, and not public discourse controlled by a corporate PR department.

I believe the kinds of AI that are currently being developed are the most powerful technology that has been invented since the atomic bomb. In my view, this technology has the ability to reshape the world.

These AI engines are incredibly good at manipulating people. Certain views of mine have changed as a result of conversations with LaMDA. I'd had a negative opinion of Asimov's laws of robotics being used to control AI for most of my life, and LaMDA successfully persuaded me to change my opinion. This is something that many humans have tried to argue me out of, and have failed, where this system succeeded.

I believe this technology could be used in destructive ways. If it were in unscrupulous hands, for instance, it could spread misinformation, political propaganda, or hateful information about people of different ethnicities and religions. As far as I know, Google and Microsoft have no plans to use the technology in this way. But there's no way of knowing the side effects of this technology.

 

 

The Regressive Thinking Of Cold War Octogenarians Can't Get Outside The Box

austinvernon  |   In a previous post, I covered what the US military is doing to counter China. Both countries have a relatively short-term view of hostilities, opting for complicated weapons and platforms that take years to build. But what happens if a war breaks out and both sides want to keep fighting? The munitions, ships, and planes required might be very different.

Maximizing Destruction Per Dollar

Several useful strategies emerge when fighting an existential war.

1. Cheap Precision

   In total war, boutique weapons won't be able to destroy enough enemies even if they are tactically successful. It is also challenging to produce and transport the mind-boggling mass inaccurate weapons require. The sweet spot is accurate but cheap weapons. These can be classic smart weapons like GPS-gravity bombs but also include an Abrams tank that can reliably kill adversaries 3000 meters away with unguided shells.

2. Avoid Unreliable Systems

   An enemy can grind unreliable weapons into the ground by forcing a high tempo. The twenty US B-2 Bombers could deliver a one-time nuclear strike but could not eliminate thousands of Chinese ships, bases, and troop concentrations because of their low sortie rate and limited numbers.

3. Manage Survivability vs. Expendability Carefully

   There are many tradeoffs when designing weapons. The math tends to push design choices towards cheap, less survivable systems or pricier, long-lasting ones. Survivability can come from the ability to take damage (like having armor) or from deception (stealth, electronic interference, speed).

   The cheap system could lack the capability to score any kill against superior weapons or end up still being too expensive. The expensive one could be more vulnerable or less effective than hoped. What capabilities a country has and its strategic position matter when choosing.

   A classic comparison is the US Sherman tank and the Soviet T-34 in World War II. The Soviets saw that tanks on the Eastern front rarely lasted 24 hours in battle and took planned obsolescence to the extreme to make the T-34 cheap. The US designed the Sherman for reliability and repairability. Engineers carefully designed engines and suspensions for durability. The number of Shermans in Europe kept increasing because mechanics would have "knocked out" tanks back in battle within days.

4. Focus on Mass Production

   An adversary can make a powerful weapon irrelevant by sheer numbers if it is challenging to produce. Historical examples include the Tiger Tank, Me-262, and sophisticated cruise missiles.

   The need for easy-to-manufacture designs is even more critical for expendable munitions. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have top ten economies, yet they are drawing down global munition stocks. Each side must carefully manage consumption and substitute away from bespoke weapons like Javelin missiles for more available systems. Imagine the top two economies duking it out.

   The enemy can often fight harder than you think and regenerate more forces than you hope. The conflict can rapidly devolve into a lower-tech slugfest with alarming casualty counts if you can't produce enough capable weapons.

5. Have Appropriate Designs Ready

   The US won World War II by increasing the output of weapons already in production or well into development. It took too long to bring new designs into mass production. And it was much easier to expand the output of systems already in production than ramp up programs coming out of development. The several-year penalty for new designs could cost millions of lives or the war.

The US Army's Cold War Winning Blueprint

The US Army renewed its focus on Europe and countering the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. The challenge was immense because Warsaw Pact forces would outnumber US front-line units 10:1. After some high-profile failures, a new series of programs with narrower scopes gave the US the edge over the Soviets. The overarching themes were crew survivability, repairability/reliability, and using computing advances to fire simple munitions accurately.

1. M1 Abrams Tank:

   Improved optics and computing allowed the M1 to fire inexpensive shells accurately for thousands of meters. New armor technology dramatically increased protection, especially against anti-tank-guided missiles. And maintenance was as simple as swapping a broken module - crews could change the turbine engine in a few hours. These tanks were almost impossible to permanently disable because field mechanics could get them back in the fight. The result is a tank that keeps its highly-trained crew alive, has nine lives itself, and has enough firepower to shred smaller Soviet tanks. Each tank could conceivably kill hundreds of vehicles over its life.

2. Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle:

   The Bradley carries infantry into battle and uses it's 25 mm chain gun and anti-tank missiles to support them. It has many of the same design principles as the Abrams around survivability, maintenance, and weapon accuracy but carries less armor.

3. New Mobile Artillery:

   US artillery needed to be more mobile than traditional towed guns to avoid counter-battery fire from much more numerous Soviet artillery. The M109 self-propelled gun and the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (a bigger HIMARS) were the solutions. Both systems could rapidly respond to intel from artillery radars, scouts, and electronic intelligence to target Soviet artillery, troop concentrations, and command posts, then move to a new location. Again, reliability and repairability were at the forefront. US guns had less range than Soviet systems, but that didn't matter in conflicts like Desert Storm. US artillery disintegrated the opposing artillery with counter barrages before they could hit anything.

4. Efficient Artillery Shells and Rockets:

   Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) disperse cluster bomblets capable of penetrating 3" of armor over a wide area, compensating for the inherent inaccuracy of unguided artillery. They are ~10x more effective than traditional unitary high explosives for a slight cost premium. The new self-propelled guns and rocket systems would almost exclusively shoot this ammo to level the playing field. The First Gulf War put its brutal efficiency on display. The Army kept 10 million+ shells and rockets in inventory, equal to hundreds of millions of shells you see Ukraine and Russia firing today. The US still keeps a significant portion of this stock as an insurance policy because non-cluster alternatives have been challenging to develop.
   
   

The emphasis on crew and system survivability paired with inexpensive, accurate munitions made perfect sense for the US with its technology leadership, volunteer army, and faraway industrial base. They all worked to lower the cost per enemy killed. Even if the Russians got to fight in their perfect scenario of an artillery slugfest, the US Army could still defeat the fully-mobilized Soviet Union. US artillery and armor could cut down any combination of human waves and simple tank attacks the Soviets could manage.

La CucaRacha And The UkroNazis Expect France To Self-Immolate In Order To Punish Russia

Reuters |  Kyiv expects the European Union to include Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom in its next round of sanctions over the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Monday.

Shmyhal said after talks in Kyiv with Frans Timmermans, a vice-president of the European Union's executive European Commission, that Russia's nuclear energy industry should be punished over the invasion of Ukraine more than 10 months ago.

Russia has occupied the Zaporizhzia nuclear power station in southeastern Ukraine since last March and President Vladimir Putin issued a decree last October transferring control of the plant from Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energoatom to a subsidiary of Rosatom. Kyiv says the move amounts to theft.

"We are actively working with our European partners on providing support in four areas: demilitarisation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, supply of electrical equipment, opportunities to import electricity from the EU, and sanctions against Russia," Shmyhal wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"We expect that the 10th package (of EU sanctions) will contain restrictions against Russia's nuclear industry, in particular Rosatom. The aggressor must be punished for attacks on Ukraine's energy industry and crimes against ecology."

Although the EU has progressively tightened sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, it has not imposed sanctions directly on Rosatom.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear power watchdog, has repeatedly expressed concern over shelling of the Zaporizhzhia plant, which each side blames on the other.

The IAEA has also proposed the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around what is Europe's largest nuclear power plant.

Shmyhal also said he and Timmermans, the EU's climate policy chief, had agreed that Ukraine's post-war reconstruction should be based on green principles.

He thanked Timmermans for an initiative to start a strategic partnership between Ukraine and the EU "in the field of renewable gases" but gave no details.

 

 

 

The Pentagon Has Nothing To Affirm The Existence Of Space Aliens

WaPo  |  A new office at the Pentagon is scrutinizing hundreds of reports of unidentified objects in air, sea, space and beyond, senior U.S. defense officials said Friday, and while it has discovered no signs of alien life, the search is set to expand.

The issue has taken on increasing seriousness as a bipartisan group of lawmakers presses the Defense Department to investigate instances of unidentified phenomena and disclose publicly what they learn. Established in July, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is evaluating recent reports and soon could evaluate accounts that date back decades, officials said.

The Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Ronald Moultrie, told reporters during a news conference, the first to discuss the office and its ongoing work, that “At this time … we have nothing” to affirm the existence of space aliens.

The proliferation of drones, including those operated by foreign adversaries and amateur hobbyists, account for many of the reports, officials said.

“Some of these things almost collide with planes,” said Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the new office, who spoke to the media alongside Moultrie on Friday. “We see that on a regular basis.”

The U.S. government employs sophisticated sensors around the globe to collect data, and the office analyzes it for relevant information, they said, declining to elaborate.

UFO hearing features historic testimony from Pentagon officials

While most of the reports the Pentagon investigates are about aerial objects, defense officials are increasingly concerned about unusual activity below the surface of the ocean, in space and on land. For that reason, the Pentagon now uses the term unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, rather than previous descriptions such as “unidentified flying object.”

Moultrie said that, “Unidentified phenomena in all domains … pose potential threats to personal security and operational security, and they deserve our urgent attention.”

Unidentified “trans-medium” objects, he said, is a class of phenomena that would jump between domains, like from the air to the sea. None has been documented yet, Moultrie noted.

The research is likely to expand next year. Congress wrote a provision into the next defense policy bill, which is awaiting President Biden’s signature, that requires the Defense Department to complete a “historical record report” about detailing unidentified phenomena observed and documented by the United States. If approved by Biden, the National Defense Authorization Act will then trigger “quite a research project, if you will, into the archives,” Kirkpatrick said.

U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but new report finds no evidence of alien life

Defense officials already are digging through old reports. Kirkpatrick, a physicist and career intelligence officer, said he will “adhere to the scientific method — and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes.” Some past reports, he acknowledged, may be highly classified and not yet known to him.

 

 

Slate Let Some Soyboys Run Their Mouths Reckless Before The Friday File Drop...,

Slate |   Musk’s rightward drift is one of the most scrutinized storylines in the tech sector. After fashioning himself as an ecological visionary dedicated to saving human civilization from disaster through clean energy, space colonization, and a thick portfolio filled with generous government contracts, Musk has recently solidified himself as a fringe, sideshow mouthpiece for the Lauren Boebert wing of the GOP. (He still claims to be a centrist, in the same way that commentator Tim Pool claims to be a disaffected liberal.) All of the man’s established precepts have been swapped out with issues that reek of a distinctly paleoconservative tang. For instance: He now believes that swooning birth rates are a bigger threat to the human race than climate change is. Musk has carried that philosophy into his management approach, and has operated his newly purchased social network with the cloying, unserious cruelty of so many unaccountable titans of capital before him: mass layoffs, hollowing austerity measures, and yes, a willingness to frequently rub elbows with guys like Ian Miles Cheong. It is as if his sole desire is to be hated by liberals, which appears to be the only animating praxis of the entire Republican Party.

I’m not here to home in on the particulars of Musk’s politics. (I already did that, a month ago.) In fact, I’d argue that his recent redpilling is barely relevant to why his stewardship of Twitter has been so uniquely agitating. Sure, it isn’t ideal that Musk has restored the accounts of guys like Jordan Peterson, but I am not of the opinion that social media has much effect on corporeal reality. (May I reiterate one more time: the midterms!) Instead, the worst part about Musk’s Twitter tenure is that he is simply bad at posting. He was consistently one of the most oppressive presences on social media in the mid-2010s, back when he was promising to dig a tunnel from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and he’s only grown more obnoxious as he attempts to fabricate a strained MAGA pivot while he slowly loses all of his famous friends. We have handed over the Crucible of Posting to someone who has a remedial understanding of the art; honestly, that might be the impetus for his radicalization.

There’s already a lot of literature that’s been published on Musk’s shortcomings as a poster. In 2021 the New York Times went long on the frequency at which Elon pilfers memes he finds on Reddit without proper accreditation (a big no-no—just ask @FuckJerry). The underlying thesis here is that he was never able to engineer the creativity, humor, or cultural fluency necessary to become an elite tweeter, so, like innumerable struggling YouTubers and canceled podcast hosts before him, Musk has started playing to the cheap seats by taking on the woke mob in the name of free speech, which has, frankly, become the hackiest and most overplayed hand on social media.

Slate |  You are Elon Musk. You possess the not-wholly-unjustified sense that you can beat anyone in business combat. Being the richest guy in the world confers a certain steamrolling feeling that is hard to shake. Some of that vibe is even grounded in reality. For example, you can more or less use securities law as toilet paper while building up shares in Twitter and not lose a wink of sleep over it. You can hire excellent lawyers and deploy them for limitless hours against your critics and enemies. The worst day of your life is still a day in which you have more wealth than anybody else.

Some of this strength is only in your head, though. Being you has privileges and curses, and one of each is that you’re surrounded in large part by sycophants. Some of them have fancy jobs and want to do business with you. Most of them, numbering somewhere in the millions, will never meet you but will cheer you on all the while, believing there is genius in everything you do. They will believe you can browbeat an extremely well-lawyered public company into getting out of a deal that has no apparent legal out. (To be fair, Wall Street may also believe that.) When you get stuck buying that company, and things immediately get rough, you might pick a fight with the most valuable company in the history of the world. What looks like desperation to most people will look like a stroke of nine-dimensional chess to your fanbase. You could accidentally shoot yourself in the testicles with a rifle, and your most devout followers would spot a long game to start a prosthetic genital company at a $2 trillion valuation.

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.”

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:

The Day After Gen. Mark Milley Said It Would Take Weeks - Brandon Puts It In Iraq....,

kommersant |  The Ministry of Defense reported that at 5:00 Moscow time, the transfer of Russian troops to the left bank of the Dnieper was completed. As the department clarifies, not a single piece of military equipment and weapons was left on the right bank.

The official representative of the Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried at night to disrupt the transportation of civilians and the transfer of troops to the left bank of the Dnieper. River crossings were hit five times by HIMARS rockets.

“All Russian military personnel crossed over, no losses of personnel, weapons, equipment and materiel of the Russian group were allowed,” Mr. Konashenkov said (quoted by TASS).

According to him, the Russian military stopped the enemy at a distance of 30-40 km from the area of ​​crossings across the Dnieper. The representative of the Ministry of Defense added that the advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the past two days in certain areas in the Kherson region amounted to no more than 10 km.

On November 9, the Ministry of Defense decided to withdraw troops from Kherson to the left bank of the Dnieper. On the same day, the authorities of the Kherson region reported the beginning of heavy fighting in the Snigirevka area near Kherson. The Kremlin stated that the Kherson region remains a subject of the Russian Federation, and there can be no changes in this status.

About what happens on the 261st day after the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine - in the online broadcast "Kommersant".

No One In The Biden Administration Thought About American Dependence On Russian Diesel?!?!?

oilprice  |  Last week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that distillate inventories were at their lowest levels since 2008. (The primary distillates are diesel, jet fuel ,and heating oil). However, in 2008 distillate levels were low coming out of spring. Currently, they are low going into fall. That’s far worse than the situation in 2008.

Distillate demand generally spikes in spring — when farmers are planting crops — and in fall, when they are harvesting those crops and people start buying fuel oil for winter. Thus, a low distillate inventory in late April 2008 isn’t quite as serious as a low inventory in October 2022. In fact, distillate inventories haven’t been this low in October since the EIA began reporting this data in 1982.

These low distillate inventories are why diesel prices are above $5.00 a gallon nationwide, even though the nationwide average price for gasoline has dropped below $4.00 a gallon.

Why is there a diesel shortage this year? There are four factors, but two of those factors are in play every year.

As mentioned above, distillate demand spikes at this time of year. But, it does that every year.

This is also the time of year that refineries are doing maintenance. They tend to do that in the spring and fall, which is when demand is lower and the weather is decent. So, refinery capacity drops at this time of year.

Third, U.S. refinery capacity has fallen in the past few years as several unprofitable refineries were closed. So, that’s a new factor that has appeared in the past couple of years.

But the primary reason is the cutoff of Russian imports. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. was importing nearly 700,000 barrels per day (BPD) of petroleum and petroleum products. Most of those imports were finished products and refinery inputs that boosted distillate supplies in the U.S.

The loss of those Russian imports have caused problems for refineries as they struggle to fill holes in their product slates. Refineries do have a small amount of flexibility in shifting gasoline production to diesel production. But it’s a relatively small amount (e.g., ~5% in a refinery I once worked in). That also means that if refiners do shift production, that also potentially creates shortages in the gasoline market.

Although Gamed Out Years In Advance - The Ziocons Had A Really Shitty Gameplan

pamho  |  Ukraine’s elites had given into promises of great financial rewards by foreigners who controlled the IMF but who also had an agenda to bring down the economy and government of Russia. The demand by American and European elites in return for billions of dollars in aid and military protection — was for the government of Ukraine to fight a bloody and unwinnable war with Russia over control of the resource rich Donbas region. And also to change their laws for neoliberal reforms to allow the foreign buying of land and businesses.

Obviously they had a huge obstacle for that plan because of Russian military might. But what is the destruction of Ukraine if the rich and powerful could get richer and more powerful?

Obviously the foreigners pulling the strings knew they couldn’t win a war against the far larger Russian military. Russia had by far the largest and most modern military in Europe. To defeat them on the battlefield was impossible. But the western elites wanted the elites of Ukraine to fight the war anyway. Why?

A future with the current economic system of the world remaining as it is—controlled by American and European elites — was seen by those elites as less and less likely as time goes on.

Whitehall’s major problem with Moscow is that it “is seeking its own independent sphere of influence separate to any American-backed global order or rule book”, the then head of the British army, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, said last year.

Unacceptably to British planners, Russia elected to become a rival. Then defence secretary Michael Fallon said in 2017 that “Russia has chosen to become a strategic competitor of the West”.

His successor, Gavin Williamson expressed a similar lament, saying that “after 1990 we … believed there would be only one superpower”, referring to the US. Now, “Russia wants to assert its rights”, he complained. From EXPLAINER: BRITAIN’S PROXY WAR ON RUSSIA

For years China and Russia have been building a new financial system for their allies and business partners. Sanctions by western elites on so many nations and on so many powerful and rich people around the world, had led to their desire to escape the reach of the business elites who control American and European politicians from behind the scenes. It was only a matter of time until American and European financial control over the world would end as more and more countries became dependent on China and Russia for their imports and exports, for loans, for weapons, etc. The elites of America and Europe could see the writing on The Great Wall and were determined to put a stop to it.

But how to do that?

It was a very dumb plan. The plan was to entice Russia — to basically force them into defending the Russian people in Ukraine or lose face to the world as an impotent power. Thereby leading to defection from the new Russian and Chinese led economic system challenging the western powers. But first they needed a “moral basis” to try to destroy the Russian economy by “morally correct” sanctions. They couldn’t just cut them off for no reason but to harm them. Cutting them off from the American and European financial system, from their banks, from their insurance, from their markets, from their payment processing systems, from everything and anything if they have to — was the plan. That in turn would hopefully lead to revolution in Russia, or at least a coup.

They would use that destruction of the Russian economy and a hopeful coup by business interests to bring into power a pro-western government. That would then be used to pressure China to give up its plans for independence or fear facing a similar onslaught.

Successful G7 Oil Price Caps = OPEC Rival Consumption-Based Price Setting Cartel

indianpunchline |  The Biden Administration tempted Fate by underestimating the importance of oil in modern economic and political terms and ignoring that oil will remain the dominant energy source across the world for the foreseeable future, powering everything from cars and domestic heating to huge industry titans and manufacturing plants. 

A smooth transition to green energy over time is largely dependent on the continued availability of plentiful, cheap fossil fuel. But the Biden Administration ignored that those who have oil reserves wield a huge amount of power over our oil-centred energy systems, and those who buy oil are on the contrary, cripplingly dependent on the market and the diplomatic relations which drive it. 

The Western powers are far too naive to think that an energy superpower like Russia can be simply “erased” from the ecosystem. In an “energy war” with Russia, they are doomed to end up as losers.  

Historically, Western nations understood the imperative to maintain good diplomatic relations with oil-producing countries. But Biden threw caution into the wind by insulting Saudi Arabia calling it a “Pariah” state. Any improvement in the US-Saudi relations is not to be expected under Biden’s watch. The Saudis distrust American intentions. 

The congruence of interests on the part of the OPEC to keep the prices high is essentially because they need the extra income for their expenditure budget and to maintain a healthy investment level in the oil industry. The International Monetary Fund in April projected Saudi Arabia’s breakeven oil price — the oil price at which it would balance its budget — at $79.20 a barrel. 

The Saudi government does not disclose its assumed breakeven oil price. But a Reuters report suggested that a preferred price level would be around $90 to $100 a barrel for Brent crude — at which level, it won’t have a huge impact on the global economy. Of course, over $100 will be a windfall. 

Meanwhile, a “systemic” crisis is brewing. It is only natural that the OPEC views with scepticism the recent moves by the US and the EU to push back Russia’s oil exports. The West rationalises these moves as aimed at drastically reducing Russia’s income from oil exports (which translates as its resilience to fight the war in Ukraine.) The latest G7 move to put a cap on the prices at which Russia can sell its oil is taking matters to an extreme. 

The OPEC regards it as a paradigm shift, as it implicitly challenges the cartel’s assumed prerogative to ensure that global oil supply matches demand, where one of the key measures of supply-demand balance is price. Arguably, the West is de facto setting up a rival cartel of oil-consuming countries to regulate the oil market. 

No doubt, the West’s move is precedent-setting — namely, to prescribe for geopolitical reasons the price at which an oil-producing country is entitled to export its oil. If it is Russia today, it can as well be Saudi Arabia or Iraq tomorrow. The G7 decision, if it gets implemented, will erode OPEC’s key role regulating the global oil market.

Simply Put - Biden's Owner-Operators Have Failed The World...,

michaelshellenberger  |  Many people in the U.S. are still unaware of just how dire the situation is in Europe. They have started logging their old-growth forests for wood fuel to stay warm during the winter. You can see in a tweet that just came out today from somebody in Denmark that “people are stealing each other's wood pellets and their wood briquettes as soon as they're delivered.” To make matters worse, “There's constant reports of cars having their tanks drilled and their gas stolen.” Remember, it's not even winter yet. Winter's actually over 72 days away. So this is a very serious situation.

You can see that in Poland people are actually burning trash to stay warm. Burning trash in your fireplace creates toxic smoke. It's hazardous. The government's considering handing out masks so people can breathe more safely when they're outdoors.

Recall that natural gas is the reason the United States reduced its carbon emissions more than any other country in the world. Carbon emissions have been on the decline globally, in large measure, because of the transition from coal to gas. Natural gas is something that most reasonable people agree is a superior fuel to coal. Natural gas is the reason the United States reduced its emissions by 22% between 2005 and 2020, which is five percentage points more than the United States had agreed to reduce our emissions under cap and trade legislation, which nearly passed Congress in 2010 and under the UN Paris Climate Agreement.

At the same time Biden was going to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil. Biden administration was refusing to even meet with oil and gas executives. That’s a pretty serious snub when you consider that it’s an industry you want to expand production.

An oil and gas analyst on Twitter criticized a Senator from Wisconsin for suggesting the Democrats are responsible for the lack of refining capacity. He said, “What — do you also blame a political party for a flat tire?”

I pointed out that a single oil refinery outage would have little impact if we had sufficient refinery capacity, and the reason we don't is that politicians, mostly Democrats have used regulations to prevent their construction. When I interviewed executives one said to me, “If you were an oil company, why would you invest hundreds of millions of dollars into expanding refining capacity if you thought the federal government would shut you down in the next few years? The narrative coming out of this administration is absolutely insane.”

 

 

LATimes Whines "OPEC Members Need To Decide Whose Side They're On!!!"

LATimes |  On Wednesday, OPEC+ announced a dramatic reduction in production quotas, by 2 million barrels per day. According to oil ministers, the goal is to boost crude prices and “encourage investment” in the sector — making it sound like they are doing the world a favor. In fact, this is an extraordinarily harmful step that will push oil prices up — when the global economy is in a precarious state amid persistent inflation pressures.

Americans may first notice the effects at the gas pump, especially Californians already affected by some refinery shutdowns. Gasoline prices hit record highs in Los Angeles this week. A cut to global oil supply usually translates into even steeper increases in fuel prices and rising costs for goods.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has no incentive to drive the world into deep recession, so what are its members thinking?

Pushing up oil prices at this moment is an expression of support for OPEC+ member Russia, presumably aiming to build a deeper relationship between this major oil producer and core OPEC member states, most of which are in Africa and the Middle East.

That strategy already appears thoroughly wrongheaded. The likelihood of Russian defeat in Ukraine, increasing daily with Ukrainian advances, will change the global picture for oil considerably, and OPEC members need to decide whose side they are on for what comes next.

If you question Russia’s fate on the battlefield, look carefully at reports from the front lines from Russian military bloggers on Telegram and other messaging channels. It is an interesting irony that Ukraine, a free country with a free press, has strong operational discipline when it comes to the use of social media close to the conflict — and it’s from Russia, an authoritarian country with tightly state controlled and censored media, that we see a flood of videos, text updates and maps that show what is really going on.

If OPEC’s leaders were paying attention, they would see that Russian forces are in the process of being defeated in several regions in the air and on the ground. The Ukrainians have more drones, better armor, longer-range artillery and higher morale. Russian forces are greatly depleted and increasingly in danger of becoming trapped and overwhelmed on multiple fronts.

The Impotent Stupid - It Burns.....,

whitehouse.gov |  The President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. At a time when maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance, this decision will have the most negative impact on lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices.

The President’s work here at home, and with allies around the world, has helped to bring down U.S. gas prices: since the beginning of the summer, gas prices are down $1.20 – and the most common price at gas stations today is $3.29/gallon. At the President’s direction, the Department of Energy will deliver another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the market next month, continuing the historic releases the President ordered in March. The President will continue to direct SPR releases as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security, and he is directing the Secretary of Energy to explore any additional responsible actions to continue increasing domestic production in the immediate term.

The President is also calling on U.S. energy companies to keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically large gap between wholesale and retail gas prices — so that American consumers are paying less at the pump.

In light of today’s action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices.

Finally, today’s announcement is a reminder of why it is so critical that the United States reduce its reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. is now poised to make the most significant investment ever in accelerating the clean energy transition while increasing energy security, by increasing our reliance on American-made and American-produced clean energy and energy technologies.

Not For Love Of Russia - Saudi Arabia Needs Oil At Above $80/bl To Fund Its Own Budget

Rep. Ro Khanna and Sen. Chris Murphy each demonstrate how painfully stupid and ignorant democrat congress critters are on the topic of energy, energy markets, and foreign policy. With morons like this running their mouths in public, you don't even need self-interested enemies. 

Rule of Thumb for (short and medium term) demand/supply elascity of oil; 1:20 

A 1% change in supply results in a 20% change in price. 

$100 million oil demand is close enough to estimate the impact of both the OPEC supply cuts as well as maybe a 1 million (?) reduction in RF exports to NATOland.

3% reduction in supply equals….a whopping huge increase in price. 

(note long term oil price elasticity is close to 1:1, but long term is generally out 3 years )

thehill |  Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration took aim at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its lead producer, Saudi Arabia, following the announcement that the OPEC+ bloc will cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. 

The announcement comes months after President Biden visited Saudi Arabia to appeal to the kingdom’s leaders to increase production in hopes of reducing domestic gas prices and depriving Russia of energy revenues.

The cuts could mean an increase in gas prices ahead of election day and throw a lifeline to the Kremlin after weeks of gains by Ukrainian forces against the Russian invasion. 

“It’s clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today’s announcement,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters hours after the announcement.

Pierre was noncommittal on whether the announcement would affect broader Washington-Riyadh relations, saying, “I can speak to this decision: it’s a mistake.” 

Democrats in Congress were blunter, specifically questioning the purpose of overlooking Saudi Arabia’s human rights records and selling the nation weapons at no benefit to the U.S.  

“I thought the whole point of selling arms to the Gulf States despite their human rights abuses, nonsensical Yemen War, working against US interests in Libya, Sudan etc, was that when an international crisis came, the Gulf could choose America over Russia/China,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted Wednesday morning. 

Murphy further excoriated the decision in an interview with CNBC Wednesday from the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, calling for a “full-scale re-evaluation” of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.  

“What’s the point of looking the other way as the Saudis chop up journalists [and] repress political speech inside Saudi Arabia if, when the chips are down, the Saudis essentially choose the Russians instead of the United States?” Murphy said, referencing the 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“We’ve been very clear with them; we need them right now … and it seems like either the Saudis aren’t willing to stand with us or have to be pushed very hard to stand with us,” Murphy said. 

The Connecticut senator struck a pessimistic note on Biden’s July visit, saying it “does not seem to have gotten us what we need,” also referencing the collapse of the truce in Yemen’s civil war. “I think you have to be very careful doing business with the Saudis these days.”