The Rock Regrets His 2020 Endorsement Of Joe Biden

newsweek  |  Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was booed by members of the audience of The View after expressing regret for his endorsement of President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Boos were heard on Friday morning after the airing of a short clip from a recent Fox News interview with the actor and professional wrestling star, who is set to return to the ring for the first time in eight years at this weekend's WWE WrestleMania event.

Johnson said that he was not "happy with the state of America" in the clip and revealed that he would not be endorsing Biden in this year's election because he feels his 2020 endorsement had caused "division."

"The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one that I thought was the best decision for me at that time," Johnson said. "Am I going to do that again this year? That answer's no, I'm not going to do that."

"I realized what that caused back then was something that tears me up in my guts—back then and now—which is division," he added.

The View crowd responded to Johnsons remarks by loudly booing, seemingly taking co-host Joy Behar and the show's other co-hosts by surprise with their overwhelmingly negative response.

"Should I pay any attention to someone who gives an interview on Fox where they lie every day?" Behar asked the crowd, before questioning whether celebrities should "endorse public figures" or "keep their politics to themselves."

Some in the audience could be heard responding "no" after Behar asked if celebrities should make endorsements. A short time later, the crowd made their opinions on former President Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy clear after co-host Sunny Hostin weighed in.

"I do think we're living in a time where we have someone [Trump] running for president that is an existential threat to democracy," Hostin said, prompting loud cheers and applause from the audience.

"Now is the time—if you have a platform—you must be active, you must speak out," she added, drawing additional applause.

While endorsing Biden in 2020, Johnson described himself as a "political independent and centrist" who was making his first public endorsement due to the outcome of the election being "critical."

 

 

 

UFO Secrecy And The Fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer

The ultra slow motion X-Ray footage of the object taken out by Bluegill Triple Prime high altitude nuclear explosion appears to show it executing a high-speed turn and flight recovery manoeuvre
by u/Harry_is_white_hot in UFOB

amazon  |   How was it possible that J. Robert Oppenheimer - national hero, director of the Manhattan Project, brilliant physicist, sometimes impatient and abrasive personality - summarily lost his security clearance in 1954? How could this anything-but-secret leftist have been trusted by his government with the celebrated "Q-clearance" for more than a decade, from 1942 to 1954, granting him access to the highest levels of top secret information regarding nuclear weapons, then have his clearance summarily stripped from him because his loyalty came suddenly into doubt?

The traditional historical explanation is too facile to be believed. It holds that, first, the fact that Oppenheimer was a leftist student at Berkeley in the Thirties was not seen as particularly important in 1942 when he was hired to become (as he later did) "Father of the Atomic Bomb." After all, who hadn't been a leftist intellectual during those years? Then we are required to believe that in 1954 the government, armed now with insights acquired from Joe McCarthy and others, could see clearly the danger to the Republic these former college kids represented. No matter that Oppenheimer actually led - and successfully protected - arguably one of the greatest secrets of the Twentieth Century. Oppenheimer (as he was called) had to be humiliated. He had been a leftist in the Thirties!

Here's why that explanation doesn't hold: It is an undisputed fact that Oppenheimer had been called back into government service many times after 1945, and continued to enjoy the the access provided by his Top Secret clearance. The reasons for his having been called may still be shrouded in official government secrecy, but we know he was called often during the years 1945 to 1954. Therefore the questions about his loyalty didn't evolve with changing American sensibilities; they came suddenly, and without warning.

In UFO Secrecy and the Fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dr. Burleson constructs and defends a surprising hypothesis to explain Oppenheimer's fall from grace. It boils down to two parts: First, that he was involved in more than one UFO retrieval effort between 1947 and 1954; then, that in 1954 he was in fact being punished by others in the select circle of those with access to classified information about UFOs.

Burleson makes an effective case to link and then support the two parts of his hypothesis. In order to do this, however, he must first work a kind of magic: He needs to put Oppenheimer conclusively on the scene of at least one government-sponsored UFO retrieval project. It doesn't matter if you're a UFO skeptic or not; that's a tall order! The government, after all, has picked up lots of debris, but denies to this day the existence of any retrievals still classified as UFOs. So how does Burleson prove the government is not being truthful?

I really don't want to tell you because I don't want to risk detracting from Dr. Burleson's detailed recital of the facts. But all right. Suffice it to say Burleson does not benefit from anyone's betrayal of government secrecy, nor does he make any tenuous inferential claims. His information comes directly from a Canadian source pertaining to a specific 1947 crash and retrieval effort - information shared at the time by both governments. The memorandum in question was declassified by the Canadian government in 1978 (for shame!) and has been in the public domain since that time. In short, Burleson makes the essential connection by relying on a skill that is sadly wanting among historians and journalists today: Pure scholarship.

Burleson is able to lay out all the subsequent known facts into a far more compelling historical narrative than any of the conventional accounts we have seen to date. He details the historical record of people now known to be connected to Oppenheimer through their connections to the event. This leads in turn to a far more plausible historical account of events leading up to Oppenheimer's clearance hearing in 1954. It puts Oppenheimer in touch, unfortunately, with people well known for their skill at backbiting, bureaucratic infighting, and the shallow envy of those who were simply not in in a league with Oppenheimer.

Whether you come to the book as a believer in UFOs with extraterrestrial origins or not, you will have to concede that Dr. Burleson defends his Oppenheimer-UFO hypothesis with outstanding success. He cuts into the shell of secrecy by providing by far the best and most plausible explanation for a set of facts that themselves are not seriously in dispute. Consider Burleson's Oppenheimer-UFO hypothesis, therefore, confirmed.

China's Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Russian President Vladimir Putin In Moscow

WSJ  |  Chinese leader Xi Jinping is preparing to visit Moscow for a summit with Russia’s president in the coming months, according to people familiar with the plan, as Vladimir Putin wages war in Ukraine and portrays himself as a standard-bearer against a U.S.-led global order.

Beijing says it wants to play a more active role aimed at ending the conflict, and the people familiar with Mr. Xi’s trip plans said a meeting with Mr. Putin would be part of a push for multiparty peace talks and allow China to reiterate its calls that nuclear weapons not be used.

Western capitals have expressed skepticism about China’s diplomatic initiative, the broad outlines of which were first previewed last week by the country’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, at the Munich Security Conference.                                                                                                                           

Arrangements for the visit are at an early stage and the timing hasn’t been completed, the people said. Mr. Xi could visit in April or in early May, they said, when Russia celebrates its World War II victory over Germany, an event that the Kremlin last year used to liken Ukraine’s elected leaders to Nazis.

Since Mr. Putin ordered his armies into Ukraine last year, the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people and sent shock waves through energy markets and the global economy.

Mr. Wang arrived Tuesday afternoon in Moscow, in a trip Beijing’s Foreign Ministry had billed as an opportunity to discuss China-Russia relations and “international and regional hot-spot issues of shared interest.” 

Mr. Wang initially met with Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful secretary of the Russia Security Council, according to accounts in both Russian and Chinese state media that both cited cooperation between the countries.  

According to China’s Xinhua News Agency, the two sides agreed to continue to strengthen cooperation and make more efforts to improve global governance, while opposing the introduction of a “Cold War mentality.”  

Xinhua’s brief report said the two sides also exchanged views on the Ukraine issue. It didn’t elaborate.

According to Russian state media, RIA Novosti, Mr. Wang was more declarative. “Sino-Russian relations are solid as a rock and will withstand any test of the changing international situation,” Mr. Wang told Mr. Patrushev, according to RIA. 

Russia’s state news agency TASS said the two men spoke about the importance of deepening Russian-Chinese coordination. The agency cited Mr. Patrushev as saying that “the course toward developing a strategic partnership with China is an absolute priority for Russia’s foreign policy. Our relations are valuable in themselves and are not subject to external conjuncture.”

 

Who's Winning And Who's Losing The Economic War In Ukraine

commondreams |  With the Ukraine war now reaching its one-year mark on February 24, the Russians have not achieved a military victory but neither has the West achieved its goals on the economic front. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and its European allies vowed to impose crippling sanctions that would bring Russia to its knees and force it to withdraw.

Western sanctions would erect a new Iron Curtain, hundreds of miles to the east of the old one, separating an isolated, defeated, bankrupt Russia from a reunited, triumphant and prosperous West. Not only has Russia withstood the economic assault, but the sanctions have boomeranged–hitting the very countries that imposed them.

Western sanctions on Russia reduced the global supply of oil and natural gas, but also pushed up prices. So Russia profited from the higher prices, even as its export volume decreased. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that Russia’s economy only contracted by 2.2% in 2022, compared with the 8.5% contraction it had forecast, and it predicts that the Russian economy will actually grow by 0.3% in 2023.

On the other hand, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by 35% or more, despite $46 billion in economic aid from generous U.S. taxpayers, on top of $67 billion in military aid.

European economies are also taking a hit. After growing by 3.5% in 2022, the Euro area economy is expected to stagnate and grow only 0.7% in 2023, while the British economy is projected to actually contract by 0.6%. Germany was more dependent on imported Russian energy than other large European countries so, after growing a meager 1.9% in 2022, it is predicted to have negligible 0.1% growth in 2023. German industry is set to pay about 40% more for energy in 2023 than it did in 2021.

The United States is less directly impacted than Europe, but its growth shrank from 5.9% in 2021 to 2% in 2022, and is projected to keep shrinking, to 1.4% in 2023 and 1% in 2024. Meanwhile India, which has remained neutral while buying oil from Russia at a discounted price, is projected to maintain its 2022 growth rate of over 6% per year all through 2023 and 2024. China has also benefited from buying discounted Russian oil and from an overall trade increase with Russia of 30% in 2022. China’s economy is expected to grow at 5% this year.

Other oil and gas producers reaped windfall profits from the effects of the sanctions. Saudi Arabia’s GDP grew by 8.7%, the fastest of all large economies, while Western oil companies laughed all the way to the bank to deposit $200 billion in profits: ExxonMobil made $56 billion, an all-time record for an oil company, while Shell made $40 billion and Chevron and Total gained $36 billion each. BP made “only” $28 billion, as it closed down its operations in Russia, but it still doubled its 2021 profits.

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.

Forget Past Mistakes - Show Your Loyalty - INJECT!!!

amidwesterndoctor |  Recently an article began circulating stating that the pandemic pushers deserved amnesty for their actions over the last two years. This article was repeatedly shared in our community as a way of politely saying "How About No” to the author, and to illustrate that enough consequences from the vaccine are starting to emerge that the government has realized they may need to pivot to a new approach (which suggests additional issues from the vaccines will emerge in the future). From having thought this article over, my best guess is that this article was primarily targeted at assuaging the guilt of the left leaning voters who trusted their leaders on these vaccines and are not the most motivated to vote for them in the midterms (as the polling data presently indicates a landslide for the Republican party).

When I read through this article, I realize the author highlighted a very common problem I observe in human interactions (which I will admit I have also been guilty of). The author is demanding to receive forgiveness for their conduct, but in their apology, is refusing to admit they did anything wrong. In order to accomplish this, they utilized a variety of manipulative rhetorical constructs that are relatively simple and frequently utilized.

Because it is so common to encounter propaganda pieces like this, I thought there might be some value in illustrating my thought process as I read this article. I tried to not make this be too sophisticated so that it accurately portrayed what jumped out at me when I first read the article. Additionally, there are a few pieces of information I consider to be quite important to know in my commentary and many more in the comments.

In reading this analysis, it is important to remember that many people make their decisions based on what their peers or the media tells them to do (which is likely the audience this article was written for) rather than being self directed and using critical thinking to discern which decision makes the most sense to them. As a result, we almost certainly interpreted this article dramatically differently from its intended audience which is receptive to this style of persuasion.

Thinking about this article more, I believe the fundamental logical error in this article is that leaders should be absolved of their responsibility for making incorrect decisions if there was a degree of uncertainty with the information at hand. This is not the standard we have held our leaders to, as their job is always to make the best decision they can with the information that is available, and in most eras, if the decision was correct they were praised for their leadership, whereas if the decision was incorrect they were blamed for their mistakes. The “but I couldn’t have known!” excuse has never been deemed an acceptable way for leaders to justify their mistakes.

In the past, leaders have successfully navigated much greater degrees of uncertainty. In the case of COVID-19, Ron DeSantis, who had no previous training in public health or medicine, was able to look at the data himself and correct discern what policy needed to be followed. Although DeSantis deserves praise for his leadership, the fact that he was able to successfully figure this out without a scientific background demonstrates that the degree of “uncertainty” here was clearly manageable.

As this post shows, it can credibly be argued much of this article was intentionally deceptive. What I am more surprised by is the degree of a lack of insight the author shows into the mistakes that were made. I should note that this is very common behavior you will observe from those who have been influenced by cults or cult like groups. As one reader remarked, it is astounding how much the quality of journalism has declined over the last few years and that an article of that quality made it to publication:

 

 

Europeans Won't Be Shivering In The Dark By Themselves

marketwatch  |  As European governments struggle to contain the fallout of soaring energy costs to their citizens, the U.S. may also be facing a brewing crisis with an estimated 20 million households struggling to pay their utility bills.

Representing one in six households, the eye-popping number comes from a study at the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (Neada) that was highlighted in a Bloomberg report earlier this week. The total amount in arrears amounted to $16 billion in June, just under the highest number so far this year — $16.5 billion in March.

“So before the pandemic, it was about $8 billion…and then the number doubled,” the author of that study, Neada’s executive director Mark Wolfe, told MarketWatch on Thursday.

Those 20 million households — largely low-income — can be anywhere from 30 to 90 days in arrears on utility payments, said Wolfe, who has been tracking the data for about 10 years.

Jean Su, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which tracks utility disconnections across the U.S. told Bloomberg that she expects a “tsunami of shutoffs.”

The rise in the cost of living was at a 40-year-high at 8.5% in July compared to the year before. Grocery prices continued to soar — the price increase was 13.1% compared to the same period last year. Many Americans reported they have already dipped into savings to pay for bills and bought smaller package sizes and cheaper alternatives to cut down on costs.

Because of the rising costs, lower-income Americans are already struggling to pay back credit-card loans and purchase big-ticket items like automobiles, Radha Seshagiri told MarketWatch previously. Seshagiri is the public policy and system change director at SaverLife, a nonprofit that helps families with low and moderate incomes to save money.

Residents living in rural areas were seeing even bigger impacts of inflation and the recent rise in energy costs, according to a report by Iowa State University professor Dave Peters, which studied the impact of inflation in small towns.

“The biggest inflationary impact on rural households has been the increased cost of transportation, which is essential in rural areas where residents have to drive longer distances to work, school, or to shop for daily needs.” Peters wrote in the report.

Rural people are paying $2,470 per year more for gasoline and diesel fuels than they did two years ago, while urban dwellers are paying $2,057 more, according to the report.

 

American Political Misleadership Gotta Give Up Its Plan To Steal Russia

theamericanconservative |  Look, I don't like that Russia invaded Ukraine, and I don't like that they are succeeding in their aggression. But they have won this thing. Why? Because the West cannot afford to continue this proxy war with Moscow.

In Poland, homeowners are lined up in their cars for days, hoping to buy enough coal to last the winter. Excerpt:

Artur's household is one of the nearly 4 million in Poland that rely on coal for heating (granted, these households are probably in better shape than the ones relying on nat gas whose price is rising by 10-20% every day and is now almost literally in the stratosphere) and now face shortages and price hikes, after Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February. Poland banned purchases with an immediate effect in April, while the bloc mandated fading them out by August.

While Poland produces over 50 million tonnes from its own mines every year, imported coal, much of it from Russia, is a household staple because of competitive prices and the fact that Russian coal is sold in lumps more suitable for home use.

Soaring demand has forced Bogdanka and other state-controlled mines to ration sales or offer the fuel to individual buyers via online platforms, in limited amounts. Artur, who did not want to give his full name, said he had collected paperwork from his extended family in the hope of picking up all their fuel allocations at once.

Advertisement

Yesterday in Rome, I talked to a couple of Poles who are terrified of the coming winter. If you are Polish and have the possibility of burning firewood, you are stocking up on it. But very many Poles do not. Nor can they burn coal in their flats for heat. What are they going to do? They're not sure.

As rich as the West is, it can't keep its people warm in the winter by burning cash. And so, European households are now being forced to ask if freezing in the dark for Ukraine is something they really want to do. This is not going to happen to Americans -- but you should think about how you would react if this were you, and your elderly parents, and your kids. 

Sanctions Blowback Doesn't Bode Well For European PEOPLE Civilization

Euros and the US. 😅
- via Pepe Escobar, Telegram pic.twitter.com/8lABewuDMy

— Seeji Sundarakshan (@Sseeji) August 30, 2022

sonar21  |  Just like Wile E Coyote, the United States and Europe are discovering that their incredibly “clever” plan to punish Russia with draconian economic sanctions is backfiring. And it is backfiring with a vengeance.

In Europe, things are markedly worse. The UK and Ireland are grappling with soaring energy costs that are forcing many small businesses to shutter their operations:

One such owner is Geraldine Dolan, who owns the Poppyfields cafe in Athlone, Ireland – and was charged nearly €10,000 (US$10,021) for just over two months of energy usage.

The cost of electricity to the Poppyfields cafe for 73 days from early June until the end of August came in at €9,024.70 an increase of 250 per cent in just 12 months. There doesn’t include the €812.22 in VAT, which brought her total bill to €9,836.92.

It has left Geraldine Dolan wondering if she will be able to continue running the business she has owned for the last 16 years as Ireland heads into what is certain to be a winter of rising energy prices and cost of living spikes.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/08/30/athlone-cafe-owner-shocked-after-getting-9000-electricity-bill-things-are-only-going-to-get-worse/

Geraldine Dolan, of Poppy Fields Cafe, Athlone, with an electricity bill for just under ten thousand euro for two months. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill / The Irish Times

Zerohedge reports that this is not an isolated event:

In short, small businesses are getting utility bills that are 10 times what they were paying a year ago. Most are going to be forced to shutdown operations.

Things are no better in Germany and Slovakia:

Zinc, Aluminum Smelters Shuttered In Europe Due To Soaring Power Prices

“A Structural Rupture” – German Companies Shutting Down In Response To Record Energy Prices

As the FT reports, German manufacturers are halting production in response to the surge in energy prices, a trend the government has described as “alarming”. German economy minister Robert Habeck said industry had worked hard to reduce its gas consumption in recent months, partly by switching to alternative fuels like oil, making its processes more efficient and reducing output. But he amusingly clarified, some companies had also “stopped production altogether” — a development he said was “alarming”.

“It’s not good news,” he said, “because it can mean that the industries in question aren’t just being restructured but are experiencing a rupture — a structural rupture, one that is happening under enormous pressure.”

Habeck said rising gas prices were affecting everyone from big industrial companies to small trading firms and the medium-sized enterprises that make up the “Mittelstand”. “Wherever energy is an important part of the business model, companies are experiencing sheer angst,” he said. And since energy is a crucial part of every business model, one can only imagine the chaos, fear and loathing hammering the largest European economy right now.

Meanwhile, the Russian economy is doing okay. That is because it produces energy and commodities and metals that the world needs. It is not dependent on imports to stay afloat. And, the sanctions notwithstanding, Russia continues to export oil, gas, fertilizer and grains.

 

The Billions In Profit Are Conspicuously Obvious, But Seriously Folks Pfizer Jes Phukkin With Y'all...,

dailymail |  Joe Biden has been re-infected with COVID after taking an anti-viral drug that leaves patients running a 40 per cent risk of flare-up of the virus shortly afterwards.

Taking Paxlovid leaves COVID sufferers in danger of testing positive for the virus again very quickly after clearing their initial infection. 

When Paxlovid came to market in December 2021, studies from Pfizer indicated that only 1-2 percent of patients who took the drug tested positive for Covid again shortly after finishing their dosage. 

But other experts say the rapid reinfection rate is closer to 40 per cent, and that Paxlovid can cause this issue by suppressing patients' immune systems too early, meaning their own bodies are unable to get a handle on COVID.  

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a prominent cardiologist and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University Hospital tweeted: 'I think this was predictable.'

He continued: 'The prior data suggesting 'rebound' Paxlovid positivity in the low single digits is outdates and with BA.5 is likely 20-40% or even higher.'

In a memo released by the White House, Dr. Kevin O'Connor said that the president will continue to isolate, just like he did when he first tested positive on July 21. 

Dr. O'Connor also said that the president would not be prescribed Paxlovid again. The president's doctor earlier noted that it was likely that the president was infected with the BA.5 variant. 

In June, a Mayo Clinic study showed that five percent of adults who had taken the drug tested positive again for Covid within 30 days, according to the New York Times. 

The majority of those who experienced rebound symptoms occur within two to eight days.  

Some experts have said that the current treatment cycle of taking three pills twice a day for five days is too short a time period to clear Covid from the patient's body. 

The conclusion of the Mayo Clinic study was that extending the time period of the course of Paxlovid was unnecessary. 

The authors of the study conceded in their findings that immunocompromised people were unrepresented in the study.  

Also in June, the president's chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, experienced rebound Covid-19. In his case, he did take a second round of Paxlovid. 

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator, has denied that the Paxlovid rebound numbers are nearly 50 percent. 

The doctor maintained that the actual percentage of reinfections is 'in the single digits.'

Dr. Jha said: 'When people have rebound, they don’t end up in the hospital. They don’t end up particularly sick.' 

He added: 'Paxlovid is working really well at preventing serious illness, rebound or no rebound, and that’s why he was offered it. And that’s why the president took it.

Sanctions Having No Effect On Russia But Crushing Everyone Else...,

WSJ  |  Sanctions on Russia, offset by a windfall from high-price energy exports, haven’t inflicted enough economic pain so far to hurt Moscow’s war effort or push President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

That resilience isn’t expected to last, with many economists predicting a deep recession later this year, a rise in poverty and a long-term degradation of the country’s economic potential. For now, the slow pace of sanctions, Russia’s successful efforts to stabilize its economy and its ability to keep oil and gas flowing overseas have cushioned the blow for Moscow. 

That is allowing Russia to continue its war effort in Ukraine for now, said Janis Kluge, an expert in the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“Right now, the economic sanctions are not an incentive for Russia to negotiate,” Mr. Kluge said. “The Kremlin is convinced it can withstand a few years with a bad economy and wait for better days. Russia is emboldened by its own success in fending off the West’s sanctions.”

On Thursday, some of Russia’s top economic officials spoke at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which was empty of its normal crowd of global political, economic and business leaders. While staying positive, they acknowledged the long-term problems the economy faces.

“We’ve managed to persevere, we’re a strong people and we just need to believe in ourselves,” Maxim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Mr. Putin, said at the forum.

The economic resilience means that Moscow is able to exert pressure on European countries, which are dependent on its oil and gas supplies. Russia’s energy leverage was on display this week as state-owned Gazprom PJSC curtailed gas shipments to Germany and Italy in what the German economy minister, Robert Habeck, called “a strategy to unsettle and drive up prices.” Russia had previously cut off gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria and Finland.

Despite Europe’s frantic efforts to wean itself off Russian energy, including through a phased oil embargo by the end of this year, Russia is still earning hundreds of millions of dollars every day from its oil and gas sales because of elevated global prices. Even as Europeans limit purchases, Moscow has been able to reroute some of its oil flows to India and other customers across Asia.

 

"Scientists Being Scientists" There Are Definitely Biological Weapons In The Ukraine Warzone

thebulletin  |  “There is no place that still has any of the sort of infrastructure for researching or producing biological weapons,” Pope said. “Scientists being scientists, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these strain collections in some of these laboratories still have pathogen strains that go all the way back to the origins of that program.”

The program is encouraging host countries to reduce the scope of their pathogen holdings to as small of a collection as necessary for legitimate scientific research, Pope said.

“What we have today and what these countries maintain are small amounts of various pathogens that by and large are things that are collected out of their environment that they need for research to be able to legitimately surveil disease and develop vaccines against,” he said.

This work, Pope said, continued in Ukraine until recently. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” he said. The program had been helping Ukrainian researchers sift through their frozen pathogen collections, with the goal of persuading the Ukrainians to preserve their genetic information of samples via sequencing before destroying the live samples.

Pope said his program had been close to an agreement with the Ukrainians on consolidating samples, but the invasion has now made that project uncertain. “All of that, obviously, has been derailed here with the recent events,” he said.

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, Pope said Thursday, has not had contact with biosafety staff at the labs in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. Phone lines have been jammed in Ukraine, he said, and “I don’t know what kind of contact we will have in these labs in the near future.”

Some Ukrainian labs, like the Ukrainian Ministry of Health’s Public Health Center, Pope said, are major facilities, others small. Some are new, while others date back to the Soviet-era and the country’s bioweapons program.

The US government has worked with 26 facilities in Ukraine. Before the invasion, the program provided direct material support to six Ukrainian labs. The program also provides biosafety and scientific mentorship training to Ministry of Health personnel throughout the country.

Has Justin Trudeau's Over Reach Triggered A Run On Canadian Banks?

dcweekly  |  Now tonight reports coming on of Canada show that there is something going on with the banks.

What the hell is happening to Canada’s banks right now? pic.twitter.com/NRjPWlG0GE

What the hell is happening to Canada’s banks right now? pic.twitter.com/NRjPWlG0GE

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) February 16, 2022

This ‘run’ may be related to the state’s actions according to some guesses.

Bank run starting . If you threaten to take people’s money a lot of them get worried and take their money out. Banks don’t like seeing a lot of money go out, so they ‘go down’ to stop the run. Only <2% of the money is paper and coins, the rest is just digits on a screen.

Bank run starting 😜. If you threaten to take people's money a lot of them get worried and take their money out. Banks don't like seeing a lot of money go out, so they 'go down' to stop the run. Only <2% of the money is paper and coins, the rest is just digits on a screen.

— Jabba (@JamesAB999) February 16, 2022

RBC reported that things should be ok by now.

I got the same response. I was hung up on when I tried to call customer service.

— itsmace_ (@ThizzWashington) February 16, 2022

We really don’t know what was the cause or what is really going on at this time. 

Fist tap Dale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MOAR Censorship PUH-LEEZ!!!!

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

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

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

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

 

Watch The Black Godfather To Understand Living Memory And What Happened Here...,

NYTimes |  The police on Thursday announced that they had arrested a suspect in the fatal shooting of Jacqueline Avant, a philanthropist and the wife of the music producer Clarence Avant, one day after she was killed at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif.

About an hour after Ms. Avant, 81, was killed, the suspect, Aariel Maynor, 29, of Los Angeles, was arrested when he accidentally shot himself in the foot while burglarizing a home in Hollywood, about 7 miles from Ms. Avant’s home, Chief Mark Stainbrook of the Beverly Hills Police Department said at a news conference on Thursday.

The police found Mr. Maynor in the backyard of the home in Hollywood after they received a report of a shooting there at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Chief Stainbrook said, adding that they also recovered the rifle Mr. Maynor is believed to have used to shoot Ms. Avant. Mr. Maynor was taken to a hospital, where he remains in custody.

Ms. Avant was found with a gunshot wound after the police received a report of a shooting at her home in Beverly Hills at 2:23 a.m. on Wednesday. Mr. Avant and a private security guard were at the home at the time of the shooting, but were unharmed, the police said.

Surveillance videos, including city cameras, showed Mr. Maynor’s vehicle heading eastbound out of Beverly Hills shortly after Ms. Avant was shot, Chief Stainbrook said.

The evidence indicates that Mr. Maynor acted alone in the shooting, and his motive remains under investigation, Chief Stainbrook said. Mr. Maynor has “an extensive criminal record” and was on parole, Chief Stainbrook said.

“Our deepest gratitude to The City of Beverly Hills, the B.H.P.D. and all law enforcement for their diligence on this matter,” Ms. Avant’s family said in a statement on Thursday after the police announced the arrest. “Now, let justice be served.”

The fatal shooting of Ms. Avant prompted an outpouring of grief and condolences from prominent figures in the arts, sports and politics, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and the former Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson.

A onetime model who was married to Mr. Avant for more than 50 years, Ms. Avant was a past president of the Neighbors of Watts, a charitable organization that threw star-studded benefits to support child care and other needs. She was also an elementary school tutor and an avid collector of Japanese lacquered boxes.

Mr. Avant started Sussex Records in 1969 and signed Bill Withers, releasing some of his best-known songs, including “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Use Me” and “Lean on Me.” Over the years, he also worked with Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Babyface. He helped promote Michael Jackson’s “Bad” world tour in 1987, and was chairman of the board of Motown Records.

Mr. Avant was the subject of a 2019 Netflix documentary, “The Black Godfather,” which featured testimonials from Mr. Clinton, former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was then a presidential candidate.

The couple’s daughter, Nicole A. Avant, a former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, was a producer of “The Black Godfather,” and is married to Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive of Netflix.

Biden Administration Solely Responsible For Pending Thanksgiving Hell...,

thehill |  Annually, millions of passengers travel by plane to see family for Thanksgiving; in 2019, 26 million travelers and crew passed through U.S. airport screening in the 11-day period around the holiday. This year, waves of Americans could see their flights canceled or delayed because of a severe lack of workers within the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In June the agency warned of serious staffing shortages at nearly 150 of the nation’s airports. The situation was so bad that TSA office employees were asked to volunteer at airports for up to 45 days. 

Given these existing issues, the timing of President Biden’s Nov. 22 vaccine mandate for federal employees — just three days before Thanksgiving — could not be worse. As of October, only about 60 percent of TSA workers were vaccinated. If employees call in sick or organize a walkout days before the holiday, it would create a nationwide travel nightmare for potentially hundreds of thousands of people, leading to massive delays and waves of flights being canceled. President Biden could get stuck with a Reagan-air traffic controllers situation.

It is not just the TSA that is impacted by staffing shortages — airlines face similar challenges. The past few months have seen airlines such as Southwest and American cancel thousands of flights because of a shortage of workers; the latter is attempting to make due with just three-quarters of its pre-pandemic staff. The coming vaccine mandate for large private companies will make existing staffing issues that much more acute at a time when the airlines have no spare capacity, and it could spark a flood of resignations and layoffs. While most large airline workforces are mostly vaccinated — United reports more than 90 percent — even losing a small fraction of employees during the busiest travel period of the year would be disastrous. How many pilots will simply cash in their retirements instead of dealing with a sweeping federal mandate? How many mechanics or support staff will call in for a week or just quit?

Those who travel by car to see family this Thanksgiving will face burdens, as well. The cost of fuel is nearing an all-time high, impeding the ability for average families to drive long distances to see their loved ones. The increasing price of fuel (crude oil is anticipated at $120 next year) also leads to higher plane ticket costs and will drive up the price of most consumer goods and food. Plus, heating the family home will be much pricier.

Americans already are being pushed to the brink with inflated costs across the board. Food prices are at their highest point since the 1970s and global food prices increased 3 percent during just the month of October. Simultaneously, a worsening fertilizer shortage because of supply chain disruptions threatens to spike food costs even more. Prices are inflating across the board — a whole turkey doubled in price over the past two years. The New York Times said that 2021 could be the costliest Thanksgiving in history.

Serial Mandater Gov. Gavin Newsome Laid Low By A Gob Of mRNA Goo?

childrenshealthdefense |  A source close to California Gov. Gavin Newsom today told The Defender the governor experienced an adverse reaction to the Moderna COVID vaccine he received Oct. 27.

The source, who asked not to be identified, said Newsom’s symptoms were similar to those associated with Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), a known side effect of many vaccines.

GBS is a neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of its peripheral nervous system — the network of nerves located outside of the brain and spinal cord — and can range from a very mild case with brief weakness to paralysis to leaving the person unable to breathe independently.

The governor has not been seen in public since he was photographed Oct. 27 getting his COVID booster.

On Oct. 29, Newsom’s office issued a statement referring to unspecified “family obligations” as the reason the governor canceled his scheduled appearances, including his planned meetings at the global COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

A local ABC News outlet reported that when “the surprising announcement was made,” a spokesperson said Newsom planned to participate virtually in the climate conference. However, Newsom’s name was removed from the schedule and he did not participate.

The Defender reached out to Newsom’s office today by phone and email, but the office did not respond before publication.

According to Fox News, Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, on Sunday tweeted — then quickly deleted — a message urging people to “stop hating” while her husband has been out of the public eye since canceling plans, including his appearances at COP 26.

 

mRNA NeoVaccinoids HIGHLY EFFECTIVE At Disrupting Women's Menstrual Cycles

thegrayzone  | Amid rising reports of vaccine-related menstrual disruptions, the CDC and FDA are dismissing women’s concerns and denying them information while corporate media pathologizes them in sexist fashion.

This August 11, the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) overhauled its COVID-19 vaccine guidance for pregnant women, now “urging” them to accept their shots.

Just 23% of pregnant women in the US have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Only something like 11.1% have been fully vaccinated. 

The CDC is seeking to drive these numbers up, but it is not doing the one thing that would, perhaps more than anything else, assuage the “hesitations” of these so-called “anti-vaxxers”: investigate and explain widespread reports of menstrual disruption post-Covid 19 vaccine – and, if necessary, add a warning about it.

Why?

I have five female friends who, after receiving Covid-19 vaccines, experienced disruption to their menstrual cycles. Their symptoms have included hemorrhagic bleeding lasting more than a month; heavy intermittent bleeding for four months; passing golf-ball size clots of blood; and extreme cramping, serious enough to land one friend in the ER.

Most of these women are in their 20s and 30s, and at least one of them thinks she might want to have children. She now worries that her symptoms might be the harbinger of long-term fertility problems. At least two of my friends have symptoms that have not resolved. All are feminists and have throughout the years been consistent Democratic Party voters.

Other women of childbearing age have reported becoming temporarily “postmenopausal” after their second mRNA shot; conversely, women in menopause are reporting suddenly beginning to bleed again; trans men on hormone therapy have also reported sudden bleeding. Apparently, the number of vaccinated women around the world reporting alarmingly disrupted menstruation is, to be conservative, in the tens of thousands. 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, does not warn women who get the shots that they may experience a disrupted menstrual cycle. 

Why is this? In part because even though menstruation is sometimes called the sixth vital sign and directly implicates fertility, and the fact that women on average suffer higher rates of adverse reaction to vaccines of all sorts and medication in general, the effects of Covid vaccines on women’s health specifically, including the menstrual cycle, were not studied as part of the Emergency Use Authorization process.

Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals

roundingtheearth |  What if it turns out that vaccines are killing and crippling millions of people around the world, but that those harmed are just well enough spread out that almost nobody saw sufficient signals to build an intuition about the problem? And what if the agency most responsible for examining safety signals defines their algorithm using a nonsensical mathematical formula that hides nearly all serious problems?

Last night I tried to go to sleep early in order to shift my exercise routine to a morning schedule. But I'd received a late phone call from a friend whom I work with researching vaccine safety/danger, just as I was brushing my teeth. He remains anonymous for now due to fear of job loss or reprisal. I let the phone call go, but I couldn't just let it go. I needed to know why he would call me that late, so after spending an hour in bed not sleeping, I checked my email. I understood immediately.

Definitions

To a mathematician, everything depends on definitions. Whatever we state mathematically, the definitions of the terms we use should be traceable back to the axioms of the field we're working in. Mathematics is an artfully woven tapestry of axiomatic structure, lit brightly by definitions. Often, we create new definitions for the task at hand, but make sure that these relate clearly to the pyramid of definitions that come before it---generally as standard as possible to language common within the field. This becomes both a habit and also a part of the self-reinforcing social structure of the mathematics community. We talk definitions that sound boring to untrained ears, but we recognize that definitions are our palettes. We port definitions to applied fields, and we create new ones to use where needed. No mathematician or statistician with a soul forgets the well from which they draw energy and meaning.

During the past few months, many people (including myself) have learned for the first time about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) where health care workers and patients can submit adverse events (AEs) suffered post-vaccination. While the VAERS database is understood to record an often small subset of the AEs, the information can still be used for purposes of establishing safety signals. A new influenza vaccine can be compared to other influenza vaccines, for instance. If the old ones were safe enough, and the reported AEs of a new one are in line or better than for past vaccines, then the risk-benefit analysis for the new vaccine (assuming sufficient efficacy) either remains the same or improves.

As with a great deal of health care regulation during the declared pandemic, changes were made to the VAERS system and also to safety signal analysis leading up to the experimental mass vaccination program officially targeting COVID-19. Without much fanfare, the CDC published a document on January 29, 2021 entitled Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Standard Operating Procedures for COVID-19. There is a lot to talk about in this document, but let us focus on Section 2.2, which begins on page 14. Here, the CDC states that, "A series of tables will be generated using the VAERS automated data," and that these, "will be refreshed daily for internal use," but "not for public release". One might wonder why the CDC would not want additional outside eyeballs on such data---particularly since it took them two full months to figure out that myocarditis was an issue with the vaccines despite Israel warning about it two full months before the CDCs scheduled, delayed, and finally held meeting in late June. Maybe the CDC should hire somebody to read the pertinent news?

We get to section 2.3, and this is where things get really crazy. This is where signals (for assessing safety/danger of the vaccines) get defined. Subsection 2.3.1 begins (emphasis mine),

CDC will perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed. PRRs compare the proportion of a specific AE following a specific vaccine versus the proportion of the same AE following receipt of another vaccine (see equation below Table 4). A safety signal is defined as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest.  

Only a real dork would emphasize the word 'and', right? A logic dork, mind you, but we'll get to that...