All By Itself - Ukraine Can Feed And Provide For 600 Million People

sonar21  |  Until Joe Biden took office I thought that George W Bush had dibs on the “stupidest foreign policy blunder in history” award. His decision to invade Iraq rather than eliminate Al Qaeda hurt the United States and fueled international terrorism. But leave it to Joe Biden to one-up W by imposing sanctions on Russia that are inflicting an economic holocaust on the United States and Europe. Heck of a job, Joe.

The ostensible reason for “punishing” Russia with sanctions that actually pummel the west was Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now we all know that Ukraine was/is the poorest nation in Europe. Right?

Ukraine is one of the worst off countries after the collapse of the USSR. It is the poorest country in Europe despite having a huge aerospace industry, natural resources and some of the most fertile land for agriculture. During the communist era, Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Despite all this, Ukrainians have experienced terrible famines such as the Stalinist Holodomor.
 

Today, the situation is not much better. Apart from enduring a war with Russia, its political system is particularly corrupt. Almost the entire economy is in the hands of big oligarchs: millionaires who amass fortunes thanks to their connections with political power.

Let me share with you some critical facts about Ukraine and its economic potential. When you consider these facts you will likely wonder why Ukraine is not one of the richest nations in Europe.

UKRAINE IS:

1st in Europe in proven recoverable uranium ore reserves;
2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in titanium ore reserves;
2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of world reserves);
The 2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);
2nd place in Europe in mercury ore reserves;
3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in terms of shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)
4th place in the world in terms of the total value of natural resources;
7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

Ukraine is an important agricultural country:
1st in Europe in terms of arable land area;
3rd place in the world by the area of chernozem (25% of the world volume);
1st place in the world in the export of sunflower and sunflower oil;
2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley export;
3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;
The 4th largest potato producer in the world;
The 5th largest rye producer in the world;
5th place in the world for honey production (75,000 tons);
8th place in the world in wheat exports;
9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;
16th place in the world in cheese exports.

Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.

Putin Defers Cuban Debt Payments (IMF: No Changes To Latin American Debt Plans)

telesurenglish |   Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law ratifying four protocols to the Russian-Cuban intergovernmental loan agreements granting Havana a deferral of payments, the legal information portal published today.

The document was ratified on June 8 by the Russian Federation Council (Senate) and on May 24 by the State Duma (Lower House of Parliament).

During the exchange of views on the issue in the upper house, the senators stressed that the extension of these agreements will make it possible to provide assistance to Cuba in financing oil supplies and will contribute to strengthening Russia's positions in Latin America.

The International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council noted that cooperation between Cuba and Russia is of special importance for the country.

"Providing assistance to the friendly Republic of Cuba in the area of financing the procurement of oil and its derivatives will contribute to strengthening the political positions of the Russian Federation in Latin America," that committee stressed.

One of the protocols amends the bilateral agreement on the granting of a state loan, dated January 30, 2009, and another on the approval of a credit to finance the supply of oil and its derivatives to Cuba, initialed on March 20, 2017.

Two others extend the respective agreements between Moscow and Havana on the provision of loans to finance supplies of oil and its derivatives to the Caribbean island, signed on December 13, 2017 and July 19, 2019.

Between 2006 and 2019, Russia provided Cuba with state export loans in an amount equivalent to two billion three hundred million dollars, the explanatory note on the new law indicated.

The funds were granted to the Antillean nation to finance projects in the fields of energy, metallurgy, transport infrastructure and the supply of products to develop and support its economy.

Due to the country's difficult situation, caused by the tightening of the U.S. blockade and the impact of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Cuba stopped repaying the state loans provided by Russia since the beginning of 2020 and in September requested restructuring.

 

 

The Ukrainian Corruption That Infects Washington D.C.

sonar21  |  Yaacov Apelbaum wrote an amazing investigative piece in September 2019 that is more relevant and timely now. He provides photographic and video proof of how a certain segment in Ukraine has penetrated the U.S. political system. Did you know the following:

• Adam Schiff relied on Igor Pasternak, who was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and graduated from Ukraine’s Lviv Polytechnic National University, to raise funds for Schiff’s congressional campaign. Pasternak is a naturalized American citizen.
• Igor Pasternak is tied directly to Nancy Pelosi and Ukraine’s network in the United States.
• Pasternak’s company, Aeros, partnered with the Government of Ukraine in 2015–The Government of Ukraine and Aeroscraft Corporation (Aeros) held a press conference today in Los Angeles, revealing further details about the cooperative partnership to strengthen the border protection agency of Ukraine with additional wide area situational awareness capabilities. The partnership with Ukraine, Aeros, and UkoBoronProm first announced in Kiev earlier this month will see the Ukraine-Russian border protected by a series of Aeros made Elevated Early Warning Systems (EEWS). Senior Ukrainian officials were joined for the conference today by Aeros’ CEO Igor Pasternak and CA State Assemblyman, Matt Dababneh (45th District).
• Notes from the desk of Yaroslav Brisiuck’s the Ukrainain Chargé d’affaires in Washington DC suggest that Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa could be a long term Ukrainian intelligence asset
• Alexandra Chalupe was involved actively with a Michael Avantti, Linda Sarsour, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and the August 2020 effort to impeach president Trump.
• Alexandra Chalupa’s Ukrainian handler was Okana Shulyar. Chalupa held multiple intelligence briefing and debriefing sessions regarding president Trump with her handler Okana Shulyar .
• The Atlantic Council is tied closely to Ukraine and Adam Schiff is engaging in intelligence collection and political patronage in Ukraine with his collaborator Geysha Gonzalez (who paid for Schiff’s aid trip), an expert on disinformation, misinformation, and false information, and the Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.

These are not manufactured linkages. Yaacov’s research and evidence pull the curtain back on the Ukrainian corruption that infects Washington, DC.

An International Full-Court Press Is Underway To Discredit Antiwar Journalists

dissidentvoice |  A military funded academic, working at a school launched by Condoleezza Rice, claims leftist and anti-war journalists engage in Russian disinformation. His report doesn’t provide any evidence or refute anyone’s argument, but the legacy media laps it up.

On Thursday the University of Calgary School of Public Policy released “Disinformation and Russia-Ukrainian war on Canadian social media”. With the exception of a blog by Dimitri Lascaris that dismantled its absurd ideological premises, coverage of the report was almost entirely uncritical. Headlines included: “Canada target of Russian disinformation, with tweets linked to foreign powers” (Globe and Mail), “Why is Canada the target of a Russian disinformation campaign?” (CJAD Montréal) and “Canada is target of Russian disinformation, with millions of tweets linked to Kremlin” (City News Toronto). The report’s lead author Jean-Christophe Boucher was a guest on multiple TV and radio outlets, labeling those who question the role of NATO expansion, the far Right and 2014 coup against an elected president in understanding the war in Ukraine “useful idiots” of Vladimir Putin.

Boucher and his co-researchers claim to have mapped over six million tweets in Canada about the conflict in Ukraine. They claim over a quarter of the tweets fall into five categories they label “pro-Russian narratives”. But they don’t even attempt to justify the five categories. Instead, they simply list the most prominent commentators and political figures promoting these ideas under the rubric of “Top Russian-influenced Accounts”. The list includes leftist journalists Aaron Maté, Benjamin Norton, Max Blumenthal, Richard Medhurst and John Pilger. But no evidence is offered to connect these individuals to Russia.

While “Disinformation and Russia-Ukrainian war on Canadian social media” reveals little, it has served its political purpose. It will further insulate Canadian officials from criticism of their policies by suggesting anyone questioning Ottawa’s Ukraine/NATO policies are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Boucher is a product of the Canadian military’s vast publicly financed ideological apparatus, which I detail in A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation. He has been a fellow at the military and arms industry funded Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Dalhousie Centre for the Study of Security and Development. He advocates theories amenable to the military’s interests, including “strategic retrenchment: falling back on the people you can really trust”, which is a sophisticated way of saying Canada should deepen its alliance with the US empire. His academic profile says Boucher “is a co-lead of the Canadian Network on Information and Security, funded by the Department of National Defence” while his Canadian Global Affairs Institute bio notes that “he is currently responsible for more than $2.4M of funding from the Department of National Defence (DND) to study information operations.”

In 2021 More Than 360,000 Californians Moved Down South Into Mexico

cnbc  |  More than 360,000 people left California in 2021, in what some are calling “The California Exodus” — many leaving for states like Texas, Arizona and Washington.

And a rising number of former Californians are migrating out of the country altogether and are instead heading south of the border. Many are seeking a more relaxed and affordable lifestyle in Mexico.

California continuously ranks high as one of the country’s most expensive states to live in. The median asking price for a home in California is about $797,470 — only 25% of the state’s households could afford that in the fourth quarter of 2021. 

California’s population growth has been declining for more than 30 years now. But thanks to the rise in remote work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, those trends have accelerated. The ability to work anywhere has 62% of Americans considering moving to a new country.  

However, there are some setbacks. Many critics argue that Americans are driving up the cost of housing for locals and pricing them out of the market.

Nicaragua Invites Russian Forces To Provide Humanitarian Assistance (Greasy House Negroes Are Nervous)

ticotimes | Daniel Ortega’s regime invited the Kremlin forces to enter the Central American country for “law enforcement, humanitarian aid, rescue and search missions in emergencies or natural disasters.”

“he most unpleasant icing on the cake for the United States was the sensational announcement by Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua. He allowed Russian troops, ships and planes into Nicaragua. Of course, only for humanitarian purposes, Russian troops can enter Nicaragua in the second half of 2022,” said state television presenter Olga Skabeeva.

“If U.S. missile systems can almost reach Moscow from Ukrainian territory, it is time for Russia to deploy something powerful closer to U.S. cities,” the journalist added.

The Nicaraguan government also authorized the presence of Russian troops for “exchange of experiences and training.”

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, spoke to Russian media and mentioned: “We are talking about a routine procedure for the adoption of a Nicaraguan law on the temporary admission of foreign military personnel to its territory in order to develop cooperation in various areas, including humanitarian and emergency responses, combatting organized crime and drug trafficking.”

The Ortega regime stated that the exchange between the military forces will be of “mutual benefit in case of emergency situations” among both nations.

According to the Nicaraguan press, the entry of the Russian forces was previously planned and coordinated with the Nicaraguan Army.

On March 31, Kerri Hannan, an official of the US State Department, warned that Russia threatens to export the conflict in Ukraine to Latin America through military cooperation with Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

“Russia maintains an unsettling attitude in Nicaragua and they could affect the stability of the region,” said Admiral Kurt Tidd, when he was head of the U.S. Southern Command.

Daniel Ortega has always been an ally and supporter of Russia, as evidenced by the relations between the two countries.

The closeness to Russia has been political and personal. Members of the Ortega Murillo family frequently travel to Russia on government delegations, and Nicaragua is one of the seven countries in the world to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two regions of Georgia that declared themselves independent under the patronage of Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Ortega’s regime has sent thousands of Nicaraguans into exile, shut down media outlets, forced the withdrawal of NGOs, imprisoned political opponents and threatened anyone who opposes or criticizes his administration.

As The Mighty Wurlitzer Admits Defeat In Ukraine Brandon Throws Zelensky Under The Bus

apnews  |  President Joe Biden, speaking to donors at a Democratic fundraiser here, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “didn’t want to hear it” when U.S. intelligence gathered information that Russia was preparing to invade.

The remarks came as Biden was talking about his work to rally and solidify support for Ukraine as the war continues into its fourth month.

“Nothing like this has happened since World War II. I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating. But I knew we had data to sustain he” — meaning Russian President Vladimir Putin — “was going to go in, off the border.”

“There was no doubt,” Biden said. “And Zelenskyy didn’t want to hear it.”

Although Zelenskyy has inspired people with his leadership during the war, his preparation for the invasion — or lack thereof — has remained a controversial issue.

In the weeks before the war began on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy publicly bristled as Biden administration officials repeatedly warned that a Russian invasion was highly likely.

moa  |   The New York Times, here via Yahoo, has some rather weird piece over alleged lack of intelligence on Ukrainian warplanes:

U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine's War Strategy, Officials Say

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has provided near-daily updates of Russia’s invasion on social media; viral video posts have shown the effectiveness of Western weapons in the hands of Ukrainian forces; and the Pentagon has regularly held briefings on developments in the war.

But despite the flow of all this news to the public, U.S. intelligence agencies have less information than they would like about Ukraine’s operations and possess a far better picture of Russia’s military, its planned operations and its successes and failures, according to current and former officials.

Governments often withhold information from the public for operational security. But these information gaps within the U.S. government could make it more difficult for the Biden administration to decide how to target military aid as it sends billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine.
...
Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, testified at a Senate hearing last month that “it was very hard to tell” how much additional aid Ukraine could absorb.

She added: “We have, in fact, more insight, probably, on the Russian side than we do on the Ukrainian side.”

One key question is what measures Zelenskyy intends to call for in Donbas. Ukraine faces a strategic choice there: withdraw its forces or risk having them encircled by Russia.

Andrei Martyanov rants about the piece:

Well, NYT decided to start steering clear of this whole Russia "lost in Ukraine" BS it promoted together with neocon crazies, and begins this ever familiar tune of the "intel failure". Right.

U.S. Lacks a Clear Picture of Ukraine's War Strategy, Officials Say

Hm, how about I put it bluntly--the U.S. never had clear picture on anything, especially on Russia, or, as a private case, [the Special Military Operation] and completely bought into Ukie propaganda, which shows a complete incompetence of the "intel" in the US.
...
The narrative on [the Special Military Operation], in reality, is dead and the failure is not being set, it already happened. It is a fait accompli no matter how one wants to put a lipstick on the pig.

Larry Johnson thinks there is another another motive behind the story:

Frankly, I find it hard to believe that there are not solid analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency who know the answers to all these questions. The real problem may not be a lack of intelligence. Nope. It is the fear of telling the politicians hard truths they do not want to hear.

Given the billions of dollars the United States is spending on “intelligence” collection systems, it is time for the Congress and the American public to demand that the intelligence services do their damn job.

I do not believe for one moment that U.S. intelligence services do not know what is going on in Ukraine and in Kiev. They know that the Ukraine has lost the war and will have to sue for peace as soon as possible.

They also have told the White House that this is a case and that the whole idea of setting up the Ukraine to tickle the Russian bear was idiotic from the get go. The question now is who will take the blame for the outcome. Who can the buck be passed to?

 

A Fish Rots From The Head - Ours Stinks To High Heaven

responsiblestatecraft |   Biden’s problem is that the United States no longer enjoys the political or economic dominance that enabled it to dictate the terms of hemispheric relations, and Latin Americans are no longer willing to simply accept Washington’s priorities as their own. Rebuilding U.S. leadership in the Hemisphere will require that Washington confer with its neighbors and genuinely listen to them rather than dictating to them. Occasionally, it will require Washington to take the unfamiliar and uncomfortable step of deferring to them.

The Ninth Summit of the Americas, hosted by President Biden last week in Los Angeles, was in trouble even before it convened. Planning for it was erratic, with no clear theme or agenda in place until the last minute. Invitations went out just a few weeks before the event, delayed because of a very public controversy over whether Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela would be included. In the end, they were not.

Senior U.S. officials hinted early on that the Summit would be restricted to “democratically elected leaders.” That prompted pushback from a number of Latin Americans, foremost among them Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Although the host nation sends out the Summit invitations, some Latin Americans regarded the decision to exclude the three governments as an abuse of the host’s prerogatives.

To mollify López Obrador and others who voiced similar concerns, the White House toyed with the idea of inviting Cuba to send a lower level official, or participate as an observer. Not surprisingly, Cuba rejected this second-class citizenship even before it was offered. López-Obrador politely declined to attend the Summit, sending his foreign minister instead. The presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador declined as well. At the Summit, other heads of state openly criticized Washington for not inviting all the nations of the Americas.

Irregular migration was a main focus of the Summit, but between them, the countries excluded and those whose presidents stayed home accounted for 69 percent of the migrants encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in April — nearly 180,000 people. Trying to formulate a strategy to stem irregular migration without engaging the governments of the migrants’ home countries is a recipe for failure.  

 

Truth Is Treason In An Empire Of Lies

caitlinjohnstone |  The empire has had mixed feelings about the internet since its creation. On one hand it allows for unprecedented surveillance and information gathering and the rapid distribution of propaganda, which it likes, but on the other it allows for the unprecedented democratization of information, which it doesn’t like.

Its answer to this quandary has been to come up with “fact checking” services and Silicon Valley censorship protocols for restricting “misinformation” (with “facts” and “information” defined as “whatever advances imperial interests”). That’s all we’re seeing with continually expanding online censorship policies, and with government-tied oligarchic narrative management operations like NewsGuard.

Twitter has imposed a weeklong suspension on the account of writer and political activist Danny Haiphong for a thread he made on the platform disputing the mainstream Tiananmen Square massacre narrative.

The notification Haiphong received informed him that Twitter had locked his account for “Violating our rules against abuse and harassment,” presumably in reference to a rule the platform put in place a year ago which prohibits “content that denies that mass murder or other mass casualty events took place, where we can verify that the event occured, and when the content is shared with abusive intent.”

“This may include references to such an event as a ‘hoax’ or claims that victims or survivors are fake or ‘actors,’” Twitter said of the new rule. “It includes, but is not limited to, events like the Holocaust, school shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.”

That we are now seeing this rule applied to protect narratives which support the geostrategic interests of the US-centralized empire is not in the least bit surprising.

Haiphong is far from the first to dispute the mainstream western narrative about exactly what happened around Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 as the Soviet Union was crumbling and Washington’s temporary Cold War alignment with Beijing was losing its strategic usefulness. But we can expect more acts of online censorship like this as Silicon Valley continues to expand into its role as guardian of imperial historic records.

This idea that government-tied Silicon Valley institutions should act as arbiters of history on behalf of the public consumer is gaining steadily increasing acceptance in the artificially manufactured echo chamber of mainstream public opinion. We saw another example of this recently in Joe Lauria’s excellent refutation of accusations against Consortium News of historic inaccuracy by the imperial narrative management firm NewsGuard.

As journalists like Whitney Webb and Mnar Adley noted years ago, NewsGuard markets itself as a “news rating agency” designed to help people sort out good from bad sources of information online, but in reality functions as an empire-backed weapon against media who question imperial narratives about what’s happening in the world. The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal outlined the company’s many partnerships with imperial swamp monsters like former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and “chief propagandist” Richard Stengel as well as “imperialist cutouts like the German Marshall Fund” when its operatives contacted his outlet for comment on their accusations.

 

 

Psychological Tricks That ALWAYS Work On You Humans....,

freakonomics |  We like to think that we make up our own minds. That we make our own choices — about how we spend our time and money; what we watch and wear; how we think about the issues of the day. But the truth is, we’re influenced into these choices. In ways large and small — and often invisible. Some of this influence may be harmless, even fun; and some of it is not harmless at all.

Robert CIALDINI: That’s right. 

Stephen DUBNER: You make a really provocative but resonant argument that a lot of behaviors are copycat behaviors, including workplace or school shootings, terrorist attacks, product tampering. What should media outlets do about those events? You may say their coverage is dangerous. They say it’s their duty to cover it intensely. Why are you more right than they are? 

CIALDINI: Because of that last word, “intensely.” They give us the news. They’re invaluable for that. The problem is when they sensationalize it for ratings. That bothers me because the actions described are contagious. We’re seeing it right now with shootings, just a cluster of them. One after another after another, because people are learning from the news what other disturbed people do to resolve their issues.  

Our guest today is among the world’s experts on the power of influence.

CIALDINI: My name is Robert Cialdini, I’m a behavioral scientist with a specialty in persuasion science.

Cialdini spent decades as a professor at Arizona State University, where he now enjoys an emeritus standing.

CIALDINI: I have become just as busy as I ever was. My wife says, how do you know that Cialdini has retired? He doesn’t have to deal with those pesky paychecks any longer.

Years and years and years ago, Cialdini realized that he was — as he puts it — “a patsy.” “For as long as I can recall,” he once wrote, “I’d been an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers, fundraisers, and operators of one sort or another.” And so, in the early 1980s, he embarked on a research project. He decided to learn the tricks of these salespeople and other influencers. Cialdini was already a professor by then, and this new research would certainly have academic value. But his primary goal was to help the rest of us — consumers, voters, regular tax-paying laypeople.

CIALDINI: Because through their taxes and contributions to universities, they had paid for me to do that research. I had found some things out, but I wasn’t communicating it to them. I always say that if experimental social psychology had been a business, it would have been famous for great research-and-development units. But it would not have had a shipping department.

But in this case, Cialdini did ship, in the form of a book he wrote about this research. It was called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It was published in 1984; it sold only a few thousand copies. But word-of-mouth grew. After three years, it became a New York Times best-seller. And then it kept selling and kept selling and kept selling — compound influence. As of today: it’s sold roughly 5 million copies in 44 languages. Just last year, Cialdini says, the book sold nearly 300,000 copies. There is a good chance you have read Influence; if not, there’s a good chance you should. Among the readers are many regular people — consumers like Cialdini himself, who no longer want to be exploited. But the book also became a blueprint for profiteers and others who wish to exploit the powerful psychological effects he identified. Cialdini, like a character in some ancient fairy tale, has found himself advising both sides of the bargaining table. Now, he has released a new and aggressively expanded edition of his book. Here he is reading an excerpt:

CIALDINI: There are some people who know very well where the levers of automatic influence lie and who employ them regularly and expertly to get what they want. The secret to their effectiveness lies in the way they structure their requests, the way they arm themselves with one or another of the levers of influence that exist in the social environment. To do so may take no more than one correctly chosen word that engages a strong psychological principle and launches one of our automatic behavior programs.

*      *      *

DUBNER: I’m curious whether this edition is, to some degree, a mea culpa for having given unscrupulous users a bible to become even more unscrupulous. 

CIALDINI: I wouldn’t use “mea culpa.” All information can be used for good or ill, but if I were to limit myself only to the information that could not be used properly, there would be no information. 

DUBNER: One of the creators of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, was apparently tortured for most of his life about that ethical conundrum of needing to help invent this instrument of war to end World War II, while creating a new instrument of war that we are obviously still dealing with. My sense is, that’s not a good parallel to you, correct? 

CIALDINI: It’s a different level of unfortunate circumstances. 

DUBNER: We shouldn’t downgrade the level of influence that your book has had. I could imagine many despots and dictators have read it.

CIALDINI: So what I try to do is emphasize the ethical uses to make it difficult for people to try to use it in untoward ways.

The new edition of Influence does indeed emphasize the ethics of persuasion. It’s also 200 pages longer than the original, and includes a slew of recent findings from behavioral and social psychology. The original book explained what Cialdini called the six levers of influence — for instance, “social proof,” the idea that if you simply see a lot of people like yourself doing something, you’re more likely to do it too. That’s the idea we were discussing earlier, about the contagion of mass shootings; social proof may also dictate whether you’ll wear a face-mask, or listen to a given podcast. The new edition of Influence adds a seventh lever, which Cialdini calls unity. This idea is especially interesting at a moment in which the U.S., at least, seems less unified than it has in a long time. Meanwhile, the allegedly retired Cialdini still runs a consulting firm whose clients include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer. And so today, on this edition of The Freakonomics Radio Book Club, we are getting our own consultation, free of charge.

Is It The Food That's Causing Digestive Traffic Jams?

mashable |  In the last few years, corporations have been trying to capitalize on Pride month — usually by adorning rainbow logos and releasing rainbow merchandise. This year, however, Pride campaigns are cranking up the sexual innuendo (all while conservatives are calling us "groomers," but I digress). Burger King Austria, for example, released their "Pride Whopper" featuring burgers with either two "top" buns or two "bottom" buns.

How did we go from delivering dinner to anal sex??

— Love Right (@Blacktallbig) June 9, 2022

Food delivery app Postmates is now taking it a step further with Eat With Pride, a first-ever "bottom-friendly" menu. 

“Bottoming” pic.twitter.com/BM4TNJaUic

— Soya (@Soya112233) June 9, 2022

Postmates partnered with anal surgeon and sexual health and wellness expert Dr. Evan Goldstein to develop a menu for those who want to be penetrated during anal sex without mess.

"If you're a top, it seems like you can eat whatever you want," says the ad narrator, comedian Rob Anderson. "But if you're a bottom, you're expected to starve? Not this Pride!" The tops are portrayed as eggplants and bottoms as peaches, of course.

👋 pic.twitter.com/kH5xejvs3T

— GuessWho (@AmicaIncongnita) June 9, 2022

The ad goes on to list some foods that a bottom should avoid in the day before sex — like whole grains, cauliflower, and legumes — that contain insoluble fiber. This means they can't dissolve in water, and are harder to flush out...if you catch my drift. Instead, Postmates and Dr. Goldstein recommend foods with soluble fiber and protein, such as white rice, citrus, and fish, as these digest easily and slowly. The menu will offer "bottom-friendly" dishes from restaurants in New York and Los Angeles.

 

Bye Felicia!

WaPo  |  Felicia Sonmez, a reporter on the national staff at The Washington Post whose criticism of colleagues and the newspaper on social media in recent days drew widespread attention, was dismissed by the paper Thursday, according to a termination letter.

Kris Coratti Kelly, a Post spokesperson, declined to comment, saying, “We do not discuss personnel matters.” Executive Editor Sally Buzbee also declined to comment on the termination, which was first reported by the Daily Beast.

Reached by phone, Sonmez said, “I have no comment at this time.”

Sonmez, who worked for The Post from 2010 to 2013 before rejoining the newspaper in 2018, was scheduled to play a key role Thursday night in reporting on the House select committee’s televised hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a Post editor involved with the coverage.

But in a Thursday afternoon termination letter first reported by the New York Times and viewed by a Post reporter, The Post told Sonmez that she was fired “for misconduct that includes insubordination, maligning your co-workers online and violating The Post’s standards on workplace collegiality and inclusivity.”

Sonmez on Friday used her Twitter account to call attention to a colleague, David Weigel, for retweeting a sexist joke.

“Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!” Sonmez tweeted in response.

She also complained about Weigel’s retweet on an internal message board.

Weigel apologized for the retweet and deleted it from his account. The Post subsequently suspended him without pay for a month for violating its social media policies. (The Post did not confirm Weigel’s suspension, citing the privacy applied to personnel decisions.) In the ensuing days, Sonmez continued to use her Twitter account to focus on the incident, retweeting criticism of Weigel and contending that Post management enforces social media policies inequitably.

Over the weekend, Jose A. Del Real, another Post reporter, asked Sonmez to cease her criticisms, tweeting, “Felicia, we all mess up from time to time. Engaging in repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague is neither a good look nor is it particularly effective. It turns the language of inclusivity into clout chasing and bullying.”

Felicia Sonmez Stirred Up A Wokestorm At The Bezos Post

vanityfair | The Post’s guild responded Tuesday to the disputes playing out online. “Guild leadership has tried hard to run our union in a way that centers kindness, respect, fairness, and empathy while holding people and institutions we care about accountable. It’s our hope that all Washington Post employees keep that in mind when one of us makes a mistake and we are tasked with being part of the accountability process,” Katie Mettler, who has been cochair of the Post Guild for more than three years, told me. “In the last few years, hundreds of guild members—often led by women and people of color—have worked relentlessly and thoughtfully together to advocate for more fair and inclusive systems at the Post.” She added, “We are doing the work to hold all our institutions and ourselves to a high standard, and we will keep doing that work in ways big and small, public and private.”

In the past, Sonmez has had widespread support in the newsroom; hundreds of colleagues signed a letter on her behalf in 2020, after Baron suspended her for tweeting an article detailing a rape allegation against NBA legend Kobe Bryant shortly after his death. (A “newsroom revolt” is how this publication described it at the time.) Soon after the paper’s guild sent that letter to management, she was reinstated. But since then, there have been multiple instances of Sonmez calling out the paper publicly—and she has done so internally in response to a staff email as well.

About two weeks ago, Gold, the National editor, sent out an email urging colleagues to “take time to assess how you are doing” and “seek help if you need to talk to someone” in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde and the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. “Just a reminder that I was punished after I told an editor that I had to take a walk around the block after reading a difficult story,” Sonmez replied—to the entire National staff—according to emails reviewed by Vanity Fair. One reporter noted that Sonmez has said both publicly and privately that she’s still at the Post because she wants to help fix things. “Discouraging reporters at the Post from seeking help they need—that’s actively being part of the problem,” they told me. “This idea that she’s fighting for sexism and gender, while that might have felt true at some point, now just rings disingenuous, even for people who want to give her the benefit of the doubt.” 

On Thursday, after the initial publication of this article, Sonmez responded on Twitter: “I stand by what I wrote in that email. In 2018, I was punished after I told my editors I needed to take a walk around the block after reading a difficult story. Other colleagues have been punished for their trauma far more recently, but their stories aren’t mine to tell. I’m not ‘discouraging reporters at the Post from seeking help they need.’ Far from it. The Washington Post’s own actions are doing that. I care deeply about my colleagues, and I want this institution to provide support for all employees. Right now, the Post is a place where many of us fear our trauma will be used against us, based on the company’s past actions.”

The thrust of Sonmez’s critique over the past few days has been about how the Post holds different journalists to different standards, and what message that sends about the Post’s values. Sonmez tweeted Sunday that Del Real had “publicly attacked” her for highlighting Weigel’s sexist retweet, writing, “When women stand up for themselves, some people respond with even more vitriol.” In another tweet in the thread, she dismissed the idea that objecting to sexism was “clout chasing”—Del Real’s words—and tagged Buzbee and Gold to ask if the paper agreed with her. On Monday and Tuesday, she was once again urging management, via Twitter, to intervene. 

“Working at a huge news organization—the Post, The New York Times, CNN—is like living in a big city where there are always emergencies,” one staffer said. An embarrassing correction for the Styles desk might be a fire; a story the Times beats the Post on, a flood. “As a colleague, you probably should be trying to help fund the fire department or city services and make it a better place to live; at worst, you’re not paying your taxes,” they continued. “And then you have Felicia, who is essentially pouring gasoline on every fire and inviting people to watch.”

Sonmez responded Thursday on Twitter: “To borrow an analogy, working at a big news organization is like living in a big city. Emergencies like corrections come up every day. That’s normal. Are sexist or racist tweets ‘normal’ emergencies? Is the denigration of a class of people a ‘normal’ emergency? Or are those things a sign of deeper problems within a newsroom rife with unequal treatment?”

How Will American Oligarchs Keep Control Of You Increasingly Taxed And Put Upon Piss-ants?

neuburger |  But note in the first quote above the even larger problem Hudson identifies: How can the West maintain living standards while also de-industrializing and impoverishing the 99%?

He answers it, indirectly, by talking about how the inflow of money from Europe and other U.S.-dominated countries like Japan keeps the rich in cash:

European economic shortages are a huge benefit to the United States, which is making enormous profits on more expensive oil (which is controlled largely by U.S. companies, followed by British and French oil companies). Europe’s replenishment of the arms that it donated to Ukraine also is a boon to the U.S. military-industrial complex, whose profits are soaring.

But the United States is not recycling these economic gains to Europe, which is looking like the big loser.

None of those profits is going to the people. Only the living standards of the “One Percent” are propped up. (By “One Percent” I mean the upper 10%, a group that comprises our actual oligarchs, plus all those well-paid souls who keep that ship afloat and its engines running.)

Which leaves us with the original question: How will our wealthy keep control if they keep impoverish voters? Hudson’s answer, implicit in a piece written earlier is stark:

“The alternative to democracy is oligarchy. As Aristotle noted already in the 4th century BC, oligarchies turn themselves into hereditary aristocracies. This is the path to serfdom.”

In the same piece he adds, “All this sounds like Rome at the end of the Republic in the 1st century BC.”

People make facile comparisons of modern America to the end of the Roman Republic — without fully realizing that at the end of the Roman Republic, the Republic did end.

So how will our oligarchs do it — maintain control while impoverishing the governed? There’s really only one answer — by ending the republic, both its fact and pretense.

There may be other ways, but I can’t think of them.

Not Even Middle East Garrison States Can Be Bothered With Brandon....,

thecradle  |  It appears that the US has effectively lost most of the Gulf states (with the exception of Qatar) in favor of the new, more wily Russian ally. This loss was reflected in the recent decision of OPEC to increase oil production by only 200,000 barrels per day, significantly below the one million barrels per day. the US has sought.

Will the US administration accept this defeat easily and raise a white flag? The answer is ‘no,’ as Biden will cleave to long-established Beltway policy for West Asia, the most important aspect of which is the US military bases in the Persian Gulf.

Contrary to what local populations are encouraged to think, the US military bases were not established to protect the host states, but rather to ensure – even force – their government commitment to US interests and to submit to Washington’s diktats.

With regards to the current US pre-occupation with Ukraine, the war is tilting in Russia’s favor, both in the military and economic realms, with an almost complete failure of western-imposed economic sanctions.

The longer Biden delays his West Asia tour because of ‘non-ideal conditions’ in the host countries, the more those conditions are likely to evolve against US interests. Neither Saudi Arabia nor what’s left of the Israeli coalition government are waiting around for Biden – especially when nothing is delaying frequent trips by the Russians, Chinese, and other multipolar actors from filling that American gap.

Brandon Done FUBAR'd Relations With Both Brazil's Left And Right Wings...,

reuters |  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday cast doubt on the 2020 election victory of U.S. President Joe Biden, just two days before they are due to meet for the first time during the Summit of the Americas.

Bolsonaro, an outspoken admirer of former President Donald Trump, said in a TV interview that he still harbors suspicions about Biden's victory and he again praised Trump's government.

In 2020, the Brazilian leader voiced allegations of U.S. election fraud as he backed Trump. Bolsonaro was also one of the last world leaders to recognize Biden's win.

"The American people are the ones who talk about it (election fraud). I will not discuss the sovereignty of another country. But Trump was doing really well," Bolsonaro said.

"We don't want that to happen in Brazil," he added.

Bolsonaro, who currently trails former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in opinion polls ahead of an election in October, has frequently questioned the legitimacy of Brazil's electronic voting system.

The right wing leader is scheduled to meet Biden on Thursday at the U.S.-hosted summit in Los Angeles.

According to the White House, their first formal talks will cover a range of issues, including food insecurity, climate change and COVID-19 pandemic recovery. read more

Bolsonaro said in the interview he does not believe that Biden will try to "impose anything" on what he should do to reduce deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, which has increased during his tenure.

 

 

As Predicted, Brandon's Summit Of The Americas Is An Epic Failure

mronline  |  The U.S. government’s Summit of the Americas started on June 6 in Los Angeles, California. And the event proved to be a major diplomatic failure for the Joe Biden administration.

Washington refused to invite the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

So to protest this exclusion, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, and Honduras boycotted the summit. Guatemala’s president also chose to skip the conference.

This means heads of state representing Latin American countries with a total population of more than 200 million people–a significant percentage of the Americas–refused to attend Washington’s Summit of the Americas.

The most significant absence was Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known popularly by the acronym AMLO.

“I am not going to the summit because not all of the countries of the Americas were invited,” AMLO explained in his morning press conference on June 6.

“I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries, the exclusion, the desire to dominate, the lack of respect for the sovereignty of the countries and the independence of every country,” the Mexican president explained.

“There cannot be a Summit of the Americas if all of the countries of the American continent do not participate,” López Obrador continued.

We consider that to be the old policy of interventionism, of a lack of respect for nations and their peoples.

AMLO criticized the U.S. Republican Party for its “extremist” positions against Cuba and racist policies against immigrants. But he also pointed out that some prominent figures in the Democratic Party, such as New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, have also contributed to “hate” against Cuba and hawkish meddling in Latin America’s sovereign affairs.

“I don’t accept hegemonies,” AMLO added.

 

China OTOH DOES Have An Economic Strategy For The Americas

reuters  |  BUENOS AIRES/LIMA/LOS ANGELES, June 8 (Reuters) - China has widened the gap on the United States in trade terms in large swathes of Latin America since U.S. President Joe Biden came into office early last year, data show, underscoring how Washington is being pushed onto the back foot in the region.

An exclusive Reuters analysis of U.N. trade data from 2015-2021 shows that outside of Mexico, the top U.S. trade partner, China has overtaken the United States in Latin America and widened the gap last year.

The trend, driven by countries in resource-rich South America, hammers home how the United States has lost ground in a region long seen as its backyard, even as Biden aims to reset ties at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles this week.

Mexico and the United States have had a free trade deal since the 1990s and the amount of commerce between the two next-door neighbors alone overshadows Washington's commerce with the rest of Latin America.

But the trade gap with the United States in the rest of the region, which first opened up under former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018, has grown since Biden took office in January last year, despite a pledge to restore Washington's role as a global leader and to refocus attention on Latin America after years of what he once called "neglect".

On the groundcurrent and former officials told Reuters that the United States had been slow to take concrete action and that China, a major buyer of grains and metals, simply offered more to the region in terms of trade and investment.

Juan Carlos Capunay, Peru's former ambassador to China, said that Mexico aside, "the most important commercial, economic and technological ties for Latin America are definitely with China, which is the top trade partner for the region, well above the United States."

He added though that politically the region still was more aligned with the United States.

When excluding Mexico, total trade flows - imports and exports - between Latin America and China hit nearly $247 billion last year, according to the latest available data, well above the $174 billion with the United States. The 2021 data lacks trade numbers from some regional countries but those balance each other out in terms of U.S.-China bias.

 

STAHP PLAYING!!! Brandon Ain't Got No Economic Strategy For The Asia-Pacific Region...,

foreignpolicy |  Months after U.S. President Joe Biden first indicated that his administration would launch a new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) that would signal strengthened U.S. engagement with Asian economies, the president, together with the leaders of a dozen countries from across Asia, announced the launch of the IPEF in Tokyo on May 23.

The Biden administration is convinced that the new framework is an opportunity to showcase what senior U.S. officials have described as a “foreign policy for the middle class,” an initiative that fulfills a strategic need while delivering results for U.S. workers and businesses.

In a discussion with the press before the IPEF’s launch, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that “expanding U.S. economic leadership in the Indo-Pacific through vehicles like IPEF is good for America.” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose department is responsible for negotiating three of the framework’s four pillars, described it as “an important turning point in restoring U.S. economic leadership in the region and presenting Indo-Pacific countries an alternative to China’s approach,” And U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai called it an opportunity to “tackle 21st-century challenges and promote fair and resilient trade for years to come.”

However, while Japan and other U.S. partners in Asia have wanted Washington to reinvigorate economic cooperation with the region ever since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017, there is some unease about the IPEF. After all, Asia-Pacific governments have been clear that they would prefer that the United States rejoin the TPP—now rechristened as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)—to any alternative.

The slow process of determining what will be in the four “pillars” of the IPEF, how negotiations will be handled due to a division of labor between the U.S. trade representative and the commerce secretary, and uncertainty about which governments would sign up have deepened the ambivalence.

As a result of this ambivalence, the joint statement launching the framework referred to “collective discussions toward future negotiations,” indicating that there is more work to do to flesh out the initiative.

Asian governments are not wrong to have mixed feelings about the IPEF. U.S. trade officials plan to seek higher labor and environmental performances from negotiating partners, but they have also indicated that they are not prepared to offer access to the U.S. market—let alone pursue a TPP-style free trade agreement. Tai, the U.S. trade representative, has described such conventional agreements, which provide broad market access in exchange for pledges to improve labor and environmental standards that critics contend will likely have little practical impact on real-world conditions, as a “20th-century tool.” She wants to show that it is possible to pursue an international economic policy that delivers for working- and middle-class Americans.

The Secret Ukrainian Military Programs

voltairenet  |  In 2016, the United States committed to arming Ukraine to fight and win a war against Russia. Subsequently, the US Department of Defense organized a biological research program in Ukraine, and then huge amounts of nuclear fuel were secretly transferred to the country. These data change the interpretation of this war: it was not wanted and prepared by Moscow, but by Washington.

Throughout this series of articles, which began a month and a half before the war in Ukraine, I have been developing the idea that the Straussians, the small group of Leo Strauss followers in the US administration, were planning a confrontation against Russia and China. However, in the tenth episode of this series, I related how the Azov regiment became the paramilitary pillar of the Ukrainian Banderists by referring to the visit of Senator John McCain to it in 2016 [1]. However, the latter is not a Straussian, but was advised by Robert Kagan during his presidential election campaign in 2008, a central thinker among the Straussians [2], even though he has always cautiously denied his membership in this sect.

The planning of the war against Russia

A video, filmed during John McCain’s visit to Ukraine in 2016, has resurfaced. It shows the senator accompanied by his colleague and friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The two Americans are traveling on a Senate mission. But McCain is also the president of the IRI (International Republican Institute), the Republican branch of the NED (National Endowment for Democracy). It is known that the IRI has conducted about 100 seminars for the leaders of Ukrainian political parties classified as right-wing, including for the Banderists. The senators are addressing officers of the Azov regiment, the main Banderist paramilitary formation. This should come as no surprise. John McCain has always maintained that the United States should rely on the enemies of its enemies, whoever they may be. Thus, he has publicly claimed responsibility for his contacts with Daesh against the Syrian Arab Republic [3]

In this video, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain assure that the United States will give all the weapons necessary for them to succeed in defeating Russia.

This video, I repeat, was recorded six years before the Russian army entered Ukraine. The two senators are investing their interlocutors with a mission. They do not see them as mercenaries who are paid, but as proxies who will fight for the unipolar world to the death.

Shortly afterwards, President Poroshenko, who had attended the meeting in battle dress, changed the badge of his secret service, the SBU. It is now an owl holding a sword directed against Russia with the motto "The wise will rule over the stars". It is clear that the Ukrainian state apparatus was preparing for war against Russia on behalf of the United States.

Three years later, on September 5, 2019, the Rand Corporation organized a meeting in the US House of Representatives to explain its plan: to weaken Russia by forcing it to deploy in Kazakhstan, then in Ukraine and as far as Transnistria [4].

I have explained at length in two previous articles [5] that at the end of the Second World War the United States and the United Kingdom took over many Nazi leaders and Ukrainian Banderists to turn them against the USSR. They mothered these fanatics as soon as the USSR disappeared and used them against Russia. It remained to explore how they armed them.

 

 

 

Who And What Was Taught By NATO Military Instructors In Ukraine?

sputnik  |  Access to high-tech weapons and Western military master classes was not only available to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also to fighters of the nationalist battalions. According to Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, US and British military instructors began training Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov Battalion in 2015. Ritter said that the goal of Western specialists was to create nationalist detachments in Ukraine, which is why the Americans and Britons got in touch with the Azov Battalion.

In an interview with an unnamed website on 18 March 2016, Roman Zvarich, the head of the headquarters of the Azov Civil Corps, said that “last summer”, they had organised an officer school with Azov’s “Georgian brother”. According to Zvarich, the tutors were four former American officers and one Canadian.

 

He also said that 32 Azov officers had graduated from the school and that they were “ready to carry out tactical tasks according to the procedures adopted in NATO countries, and they know better than Ukrainian generals”. Zvarich argued that a new military headquarters had been built in Azov in full line with NATO standards – “probably the only such headquarters in the system of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.

 

In 2018, American journalist and blogger Max Blumenthal published a study on the contacts of the Azov Battalion with US military personnel. According to the author, in November 2017, overseas military inspectors visited the Azov Battalion, “known as a bastion of neo-Nazism in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, to discuss “logistics and deepening cooperation”. An unnamed Azov fighter quoted by Blumenthal told American journalists that US instructors and volunteers worked closely with his battalion. American officers met with Azov commanders for two months for “training and other assistance”.

 

The leadership of Azov, Blumenthal argued, managed to establish warm relations with the US military. A photograph posted on the Azov website shows a US officer shaking hands with the Azov commander (and the American is not at all embarrassed by the Nazi symbols on the uniform of his Ukrainian counterpart). These photos confirm the secret ties between Ukrainian nationalists and US military personnel, according to the journalist.

 

Blumenthal drew a parallel between Washington's billion-dollar programme to train Syrian “moderate rebels” and the US military’s ties to Ukrainian nationalists, claiming that there are clear similarities between the two projects. Previously, heavy weapons allegedly designed for the Free Syrian Army fell directly into the hands of Daesh*, and now US arms go directly to Azov extremists, Blumenthal concludes.