Larry Johnson Boldly Dot-Connecting Demo-krainian Fustercluckery

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

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

Others have hinted. Johnson is boldly connecting the dots.

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

And was Hunter Biden involved?

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

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

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

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

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

The Definitive Thread on FTX

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

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

— Jason Choi (@mrjasonchoi) November 15, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Talking Turkey About Ukraine In Turkiye?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bankman-Fried said at the time:

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

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

American Political Misleadership Dangerous To America And To The World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Inside-Baseball Details On The Takedown Of Kanye West

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If You Had Kept Your Silence You Would Have Stayed A Philosopher...,

WaPo  | U.S. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday night that 20,000 to 30,000 Russian forces remained on the western bank of the river and that it would take time for them to withdraw. But he, too, saw “initial indicators” that the retreat was underway, he said.

“This won’t take them a day or two,” Milley said, speaking at an event at the Economic Club of New York. “This is going to take them days and maybe even weeks to pull those forces south of that river.”

Ukrainian forces have been slowly advancing toward Kherson for weeks, targeting ammunition centers, command posts and supply facilities in the region and putting pressure on Russian forces, said Yuriy Sak, an adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

“Literally it’s no longer possible for them to stay in Kherson because they’re unable to provide munitions to their army, provide provisions,” Sak said in an interview. “It’s no longer possible for them to continue to fight.”

Despite exuberant troops posting social media videos and selfies of retaken villages, Ukrainian military commanders are reluctant to broadcast their next moves.

“The winter will be a factor,” Sak said. “It could be slower, it could be faster depending on weather conditions. But we’re not going to stop. We’re going to continue our counteroffensive meter by meter, village by village.”

Departing Russian forces are laying mines and blowing up bridges as they pull back from Kherson city, and there is concern that some troops may be hiding in the city, waiting to spring a trap, Ukrainian officials said. Advancing Ukrainian soldiers also will be within range of Russian artillery on the opposite bank of the river.

But a full retreat from Kherson city is now seen as inevitable. Ukrainian forces have targeted Russian supply lines and choked off Moscow’s ability to support front-line troops.

“The Russians can definitely organize some traps in Kherson still, but they never had enough troops or logistics to keep those right-bank positions,” said another adviser to the Ukrainian government who was not authorized to speak to the press and commented on the condition of anonymity.

Russian Withdrawal From Kherson A Tactical Necessity

sputnik  | Surovikin’s concerns about the danger posed to Kherson’s civilian population are not academic. In the opening stages of Russia’s military operation this spring, thousands were killed or injured in Mariupol, Popasnaya, Volnovakha and other urban locations after Ukrainian forces and neo-Nazi battalions dug in, often deliberately in civilian areas, hiding in or near apartment blocks, shopping centers, schools, kindergartens, and even hospitals, to lure Russian forces into bloody street battles, and receive a convenient pretext to accuse Moscow of war crimes anytime a civilian building was damaged or destroyed.

By withdrawing forces from the right bank of the Dnepr, Russian forces have signaled their rejection of this costly and bloody strategy. Over the past three weeks, as Ukrainian forces amassed troops near Kherson and intensified shelling of the city, a large-scale evacuation of civilians was kicked off. In his remarks Wednesday, Surovikin reported that over 115,000 people had been evacuated, taken to Crimea and other areas deeper inside Russia.

 

The military’s strategy of evacuation and the creation of a defensive line that can be easily secured appears to be aimed at showing that Russia is not interested in "pyrrhic victories," and that Moscow will not succumb to efforts by NATO and its clients in Kiev to drown the region in blood, kill tens of thousands, and trap Russia in a hopeless strategic and tactical situation from which it would be nearly impossible to escape.

 

In the run-up to Wednesday’s announcement, Ukrainian commanders made no secret of their assessment of the situation. On October 29, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov predicted that amid the concentration of Ukrainian forces, NATO mercs, and heavy weapons near Kherson, the “liberation” of the city wouldn’t take place “without a fight,” but be preceded by the cordoning off of the city and the isolation of Russian forces, followed by battles to gradually grind them down. The strategy is familiar to historians of the Second World War on the Eastern Front, which featured the heavy use of pincers to encircle troops, leave them without supplies, and gradually close the noose to eliminate them or take them prisoner.

In his remarks last month, Budanov even suggested that Russia might sabotage the Kakhovskaya Dam to try to slow down Ukrainian forces, apparently forgetting that terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure was more Kiev and the West’s forte (the recent attacks on Nord Stream, the Crimean Bridge, and Sevastopol Bay serving as but a few examples).

Russia’s Strategy in Historical Context

The Russian military’s decision was obviously a “difficult,” forced measure, as Surovikin openly stated in his remarks Wednesday.

 

In both the strategic and historical contexts, the pullout to the left bank of the Dnepr River could be said to be based on a broader interest – winning the "proxy war" that the West has declared on Russia, not winning a single battle. During the Great Northern War against Sweden of 1700-1721, the French invasion of Russia in 1812, and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, commanders pulled back forces dozens or even hundreds of kilometers when necessary, but never lost sight of the strategic goal.

 

In the Ukrainian security crisis, unleashed by the US and the EU in 2014, time appears to be on Russia’s side, with Kiev and its Western backers facing an increasingly grim series of economic and energy crises, and Western capitals from Washington to Berlin signaling exhaustion with Kiev, and expressing growing hesitation to support the bottomless pit of weapons and cash that Ukraine has become.

 

US and European media have issued report after report detailing how NATO is literally running out of weapons to send to Ukraine. Meanwhile, capitals across Europe, including economic and political powerhouse Germany, have been overrun with cost of living protests sparked largely by Brussels’ move to slap restrictions on Russian energy.The US, which has committed $60 billion of the estimated $100 billion in military and economic support sent to Kiev over the past eight months, just held its most highly-contested midterm elections in decades, with Republicans poised to take the House, and wrangling with Democrats for control of the Senate. Last month, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy warned that there would be no “blank check” for Ukraine in a GOP-controlled House.

 

The Trump wing of the GOP has been even more adamant, with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stressing last week that “not another penny will go to Ukraine” under the Republicans, who will instead focus Washington’s energy and resources on the US’ porous border with Mexico. Only time will tell whether the politicians will make good on their promises, or even be allowed to do so by America's powerful deep state interests.

 

Whatever happens, in a situation where Russia has the energy and food resources to survive the coming winter, and a seemingly better chance to preserve the political wherewithal to ride out the crisis, it will ultimately be up to Kiev's Western sponsors to decide whether to continue the strategy of exchanging tactical gains for strategic losses, or to finally push its clients to come to the negotiating table and address Russia's fundamental security concerns.        

“Nothing is accomplished in haste. It’s not difficult to take a fortress, but difficult to win a campaign. And for this you need not to storm and attack, but patience and time,” Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov said in the Leo Tolstoy classic "War and Peace."

More than 150 years after being written, these words have not lost their relevance.

Did Jake Sullivan Threaten The Intervention Of 90,000 NATO Troops In Ukraine?

NYTimes  |  In Ukraine, the fate of Crimea is a particularly thorny question. Ukrainian leaders insist they will retake that peninsula and other land that the Russian military seized in 2014.

Mr. Putin sees Crimea as a territory of great strategic and historical importance. At the same time, Ukraine, the United States and European nations have insisted for years that Crimea’s status is nonnegotiable. Biden administration officials have repeatedly said that one of the main reasons for supporting Ukraine is to defend the core principle that borders cannot be changed by force.

“In terms of the ultimate status of Crimea, that will be something to be negotiated or discussed between the Ukrainians and the Russians, but Crimea is Ukraine,” Colin H. Kahl, the Pentagon’s under secretary for policy, said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian military advances on Crimea, though a distant prospect for now, would stoke concern in Washington about Mr. Putin’s threats to escalate the conflict.

American and European leaders see their goal for now as keeping a protracted war contained to Ukraine and deterring Mr. Putin from using a tactical nuclear warhead or other weapon of mass destruction. Officials debate whether Mr. Putin is bluffing when he hints at using nuclear arms, but some analysts believe that control of Crimea, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, could be a red line for the Russian leader.

American officials have said for months that they are sending private and public messages to the Kremlin to warn of severe consequences if Mr. Putin uses nuclear weapons. Mr. Sullivan has been talking to Nikolai Patrushev, his Russian counterpart, since the beginning of the war to try to avert any misunderstandings around nuclear threats, the Biden administration official said.

“I have known both Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken for years,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, referring to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. Mr. Khanna, who was among those who signed the progressives’ letter to Mr. Biden, continued, “I have confidence that they understand the risks of nuclear war and the risks of escalation, and are doing everything they can to stand with Ukraine while minimizing the risks of the conflict escalating.”

American officials said Mr. Zelensky’s private position has been the same as his public one: He wants to see Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory returned, and he is not interested in trading any of it for an end to the war.

Some European officials wonder privately whether that position is tenable, but others voice support for it.

“We hear many careless statements, like saying, ‘It’s not necessary to have absolute territorial integrity, we need to negotiate, we need to go for compromise so that finally we can have peace again,’” Annalena Baerbock, foreign minister of Germany, said at a policy forum last month. “I say very clearly: Such demands are naïve, and such naïve strategies already failed in 2014.”

What Has Become Of German Self-Interest And Will?

NLR  |  What is nothing short of astonishing is how many hawks have come out of their nests in recent months in Germany. Some figure as ‘experts’ on Eastern Europe, international politics and the military, who believe it to be their Western duty to help the public deny the approaching reality of nuclear explosions on European territory; others are ordinary citizens who suddenly enjoy following tank battles on the internet and rooting for ‘our’ side. Some of the most warlike used to belong to the left, widely defined; today they are more or less aligned with the Green party and in this emblematically represented by Baerbock, now the foreign minister. A strange combination of Joan of Arc and Hillary Clinton, Baerbock is one of the many so-called ‘young global leaders’ cultivated by the World Economic Forum. What is most characteristic of her version of leftism is its affinity to the United States, by far the most violence-prone state in the contemporary world. To understand this, it may help to remember that those of her generation have never experienced war, and neither have their parents; indeed, it is safe to assume that its male members avoided the draft as conscientious objectors until it was suspended, not least under their electoral pressure. Moreover, no previous generation has grown up as much under the influence of American soft power, from pop music to movies and fashion to a succession of social movements and cultural fads, all of which were promptly and eagerly copied in Germany, filling the gap caused by the absence of any original cultural contribution from this remarkably epigonal age cohort (an absence that is euphemistically called cosmopolitanism).

Looking deeper, as one must, cultural Americanism, including its idealistic expansionism, promises a libertarian individualism which in Europe, unlike the United States, is felt to be incompatible with nationalism, the latter happening to be the anathema of the Green left. This leaves as the only remaining possibility for collective identification a generalized ‘Westernism’ misunderstood as a ‘values’-based universalism, which is in fact a scaled-up Americanism immune to contamination by the reality of American society. Westernism, abstracted from the particular needs, interests and commitments of everyday life, is inevitably moralistic; it can live only in Feindschaft with differently moral, and in its eyes therefore immoral, non-Westernism, which it cannot let live and ultimately must let die. Not least, by adopting Westernism, this kind of new left can for once hope to be not just on the right but also on the winning side, American military power promising them that this time, finally, they may not be fighting for a lost cause.

Moreover, Westernism amounts to the internationalization, under robust American leadership, of the culture wars being fought at home, inspired by role models in the United States (although there the war may be about to be lost at least domestically). In the Westernized mind, Putin and Xi, Trump and Truss, Bolsonaro and Meloni, Orbán and Kaczyński are all the same, all ‘fascists’. With historical meaning restored to the uprooted individualized life in late-capitalist anomie, there is once more a chance to fight and even die for, if nothing else, then for the common ‘values’ of humanity – an opportunity for heroism that seemed forever lost in the narrow horizons and the hedged parochialism enshrined in the complex institutions of postwar and postcolonial Western Europe. What makes such idealism even more attractive is that the fighting and dying can be delegated to proxies, people today, soon perhaps algorithms. For the time being, nothing more is asked of you than advocating your government sending heavy arms to the Ukrainians – whose ardent nationalism would until a few months ago have seemed nothing short of repulsive to Green cosmopolitans – while celebrating their willingness to put their lives on the line, for the cause not just of regaining Crimea for their country but also of Westernism itself.

Of course, in order to make ordinary people rally to the cause, effective ‘narratives’ must be devised to convince them that pacifism is either treason or a mental illness. People must also be made to believe that unlike what the defeatists say in order to undermine Western morale, nuclear war is not a threat: either the Russian madman will turn out to be not mad enough to follow up on his delusions, or if he doesn’t the damage will remain local, limited to a country whose people, as their president reassures us on television every night, are not afraid of dying for both their fatherland and, as von der Leyen puts it, for ‘the European family’ – which, when the time is ripe, will invite them in, all expenses paid.

Handy Chart Showing George Soros Oversized Presence

opensecrets |   The top seven GOP megadonors have contributed nearly $222.7 million to Republican candidates and outside groups. Of the $185.8 million given by the top three Democratic megadonors, $128 million has come from Democratic megadonor George Soros, the top individual donor this election cycle and a frequent target of anti-semitic attacks from conservative pundits and politicians. Fund for Policy Reform, a 501(c)(4) funded by Soros, has given an additional $25 million to super PACs during the 2022 election cycle.

“There are still very active megadonors – George Soros, Ken Griffin, Richard Uihlein – and then also new ones like Sam Bankman-Fried from industries on the rise like cryptocurrency,” Bryner said. 

Soros, an emigre from Hungary after WW II, is very keen on Eastern European “democracy” and (according to his Open Society Foundation website) spent $18 billion on projects around the world since its founding around 1980. An “Open Society” (term coined by Karl Popper, who Soros claims as an intellectual father) has open borders to flows of capital, labor and information. The epitome of a “Closed Society” was the USSR (when Popper’s book was published in the ’70’s).

I wouldn’t be surprised if Soros has used his influence in the Democratic Party over the years to ensure that people like Madeleine Albright (parents fled Czechoslovakia) and Vicky Nuland (parents fled Ukraine) were placed in high places. I suspect he was a big supporter of Russophobes like McCain and Graham as well.

Some of Soros’s “projects” may well have borne fruit in such diverse areas as the framework for the EU (free flow of capital and labor); EU and NATO expansion; the growing dominance of Neocons throughout the DC establishment; and much more. I’m not a conspiracist, and won’t say that Soros “caused” all of these things; but in the absence of a countervailing $18 billion force, I think he surely made a difference by lubricating and tipping the balance in many ways.