The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Ron Bulman]

I don't want your civil war.  What's so civil about war anyway?

“Any Republicans wanna speak out now?”: Alarm after Trump shares “civil war” post (msn.com)

 

[Benjamin Cole]

22 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

I don't want your civil war.  What's so civil about war anyway?

“Any Republicans wanna speak out now?”: Alarm after Trump shares “civil war” post (msn.com)

 

Ron-

The MSM story is remarkable, and concerning.

Hitherto it has been the "liberal" and Deep State-affiliated media that has been broadcasting a possible "civil war," often juxtaposed against the need for more state-corporate censorship and expanded state police powers. 

I have lived offshore for 10 years; I do not think anyone in L.A. would participate in a Civil War. But maybe I am out of touch.

Somehow the El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele is involved, and he tweeted---

"The most powerful country in the world is falling so fast, that it makes you rethink what are the real reasons....Something so big and powerful can't be destroyed so quickly, unless the enemy comes from within."

This is a right-wing re-hash of the current left-wing trope that there are dangerous domestic subversives afoot.

The Deep State media has given a lot of credence to this idea of a Civil War in America.  I suspect the merits of the argument are nearly nil. 

Which leads to the question: Why is the "Civil War" prospect being highlighted? 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

        And the deflective right wing propaganda will be widely amplified on social media-- a process that a professor at Stanford has aptly called, "ampliganda."

I rather suspect the M$M, largely now a creature of Deep State (and also affiliated with the Donks), will play 1/6 up big, right before election time. 

The kinds of questions a JFKA researcher should ask---was 1/6 a state-enabled event---will not be addressed by the 1/6 committee, let alone investigated. 

Just like after the JFKA. No one in the M$M or the Warren Commission even asked if the JFKA was a state action, or state-enabled action.

Only fringe people did. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul Brancato]

2 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Ron-

The MSM story is remarkable, and concerning.

Hitherto it has been the "liberal" and Deep State-affiliated media that has been broadcasting a possible "civil war," often juxtaposed against the need for more state-corporate censorship and expanded state police powers. 

I have lived offshore for 10 years; I do not think anyone in L.A. would participate in a Civil War. But maybe I am out of touch.

Somehow the El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele is involved, and he tweeted---

"The most powerful country in the world is falling so fast, that it makes you rethink what are the real reasons....Something so big and powerful can't be destroyed so quickly, unless the enemy comes from within."

This is a right-wing re-hash of the current left-wing trope that there are dangerous domestic subversives afoot.

The Deep State media has given a lot of credence to this idea of a Civil War in America.  I suspect the merits of the argument are nearly nil. 

Which leads to the question: Why is the "Civil War" prospect being highlighted? 

 

So the deep state media as you put it is the liberal wing of the press? Not Fox? The reason there is a left wing ‘trope’ is that there is fear in the ranks, as there should be. Who owns the guns in America? Who commits acts of violence? And btw congratulations for finding the only left wing US violence in recent history. With the mountain of right wing shootings over the past several decades I would think you could put that in perspective. 

[Paul Brancato]

Ben - Jan 6th was carried out in full view. They were egged on by Trump and other Republicans. It was not a staged event. False flag and agent provocateur actions have, like violence and guns, been the province of the Right for a long time. You conflate things sometimes that boggle the mind. There are many here that think 9/11 was a deep state event, including Peter Dale Scott, an expert in such things. Maybe he’ll publish something about the Jan 6 ‘scrum’ that will turn our heads. But the presence of informants in that scrum doesn’t make it a deep state provocation. Trump didn’t want to leave the WH, and he did everything short of arming the crowd himself, a step too far. I personally think that the reason the crowd was not armed with the arsenals many of them possess is that it was a sort of dry run, a trial balloon. No harm no foul idea, except there was harm. The ringleaders in the Republican Party should be kicked out of office and prosecuted. It’s not their relative innocence that protects them, it’s a largely spineless Democratic Party, and a Justice Department that would rather prosecute individual ‘scrummers’ than charge the ringleaders. Do you think Trump is walking free and spreading hate because his decades of illegal and criminal acts don’t amount to much? No, it’s a lack of spine, a fear of consequences, and a phalanx of ever changing lawyers protecting him. You think they’re just dragging it out until the mid terms? No way - every day that goes by makes the situation more dangerous. They’re hamstrung for reasons we don’t even know but should suspect. Trafficante, Marcello, Lansky - never imprisoned. Why? How many uber rich powerful people see time behind bars? And now Trump, who many here think is headed for prison. Not me. I’d be pretty darn surprised if he does time behind bars. 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

So the deep state media as you put it is the liberal wing of the press? Not Fox? The reason there is a left wing ‘trope’ is that there is fear in the ranks, as there should be. Who owns the guns in America? Who commits acts of violence? And btw congratulations for finding the only left wing US violence in recent history. With the mountain of right wing shootings over the past several decades I would think you could put that in perspective. 

Paul-

"So the deep state media as you put it is the liberal wing of the press?"--PB

Yes, sadly, IMHO this has become true. To be sure, the right-wing was been coopted more in the past, but now it is toss-up. 

In recent years, the far right-wing press, and the libertarians (such as Ryan Paul) have been far more skeptical of Deep State narratives and military missions than the "liberal" wing of the media, which has become synonymous to the M$M and the Donks.

The modern liberal and liberal media are exemplified by Hillary Clinton---a warmonger in pantsuits. 

Consider Anne Applebaum:

"She is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at The Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.[10]"--wiki

Applebaum is now tweeting: 

"Putin does not need an "off-ramp." He needs to lose. And only when he loses - only when he is humiliated - will Russia's wars of imperial conquest finally come to an end"

---30---

This is The Atlantic speaking, and Applebaum is, of course, like all good liberals, a globalist. Or, should I say, a neo-liberal globalist-interventionist. 

I support helping Ukraine, and would even back international peace-keeping forces in Ukraine. But "humiliating" Putin and ensuring he loses and is seen as losing? 

No negotiated settlement that saves lives and brings peace? 

---30---

Regarding 1/6, IMHO there are many indications it was a state-enabled event. You can bet the WaPo will not pursue that line of inquiry, nor will the 1/6 committee. 

I think we have a schism---you perceive the Deep State as a right-wing implement. 

In the modern world (IMHO) the Deep State is still a capitalist-multinational adjunct, but has also linked arms with the DC establishment, Donk or 'Phant and now, even more than in the 1960s, has infested the M$M. 

On military-foreign-trade policy, is there any difference between Liz Cheney and HRC? 

How do you interpret a left or "liberal" Anne Applebaum, or a right or "conservative" Liz Cheney? 

Is it possible by saluting either party, or identifying with any race or religion or gender or sexual persuasion, you are just allowing yourself to be divided from your fellow citizens? 

I often suspect the whole blue vs red thing is....well, which kool-aid do you want? 

Parting thoughts: Was it Trump who destroyed America's middle class? 

Was it Trump who built the $1.4 trillion a year DoD-VA-black budget Deep State panopticon state? 

Is this true: the left-wing, instead of taking on the Deep State, is pursuing even fabricated story lines about Trump?  

But I enjoy your commentary, Paul. Everything I say is just...IMHO. 

 

 

 

[Matt Allison]

Ben- I enjoy your commentary as well, but surely you see it's fruitless to pretend there wasn't an attempted coup by the insane Donald Trump? He's a very mentally sick man, whose ego couldn't withstand the shame of an election loss, and is someone that couldn't care less about the damage he does to the United States. He has no loyalty at all to this country, and contemplates moving elsewhere practically every day, as he's rich and could afford to do so in luxury.

[Ron Bulman]

21 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Ben- I enjoy your commentary as well, but surely you see it's fruitless to pretend there wasn't an attempted coup by the insane Donald Trump? He's a very mentally sick man, whose ego couldn't withstand the shame of an election loss, and is someone that couldn't care less about the damage he does to the United States. He has no loyalty at all to this country, and contemplates moving elsewhere practically every day, as he's rich and could afford to do so in luxury.

It was a scrum.  Not an attempted coup.  Don't you know this Matt?

[Benjamin Cole]

40 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Ben- I enjoy your commentary as well, but surely you see it's fruitless to pretend there wasn't an attempted coup by the insane Donald Trump? He's a very mentally sick man, whose ego couldn't withstand the shame of an election loss, and is someone that couldn't care less about the damage he does to the United States. He has no loyalty at all to this country, and contemplates moving elsewhere practically every day, as he's rich and could afford to do so in luxury.

Matt-

Trump always struck me as a lulu, even mentally imbalanced, on the other hand he put tariffs on China and tried to close off cheap labor from America. 

Did Trump machinate to overturn the election? Maybe so, although there is no evidence he was connected to the 1/6 scrum. As I have said, the feds can read your smartphone texts, locations, messages and even verbal communications  retroactively.  So...where is even one text from 1 1/6 scrummer to Trump & Co.? 

I am willing to let courts decide Trump's future, but I presume innocence until proven guilty before a court of law, as I do in all situations. 

I still hold that 1/6 scrum was likely a state-enabled event, but I cannot prove my case, anymore than a JFKA researcher could prove their case in 1964. 

I enjoy your insights, which make me think about my own views.

The point of conversation is not to insult, or score partisan points, or win culture wars. I want to know what happened, whether 11/22, 9/11, 1/6.

I want to know what is the modern iteration of the Deep State and affiliated media. I may be wrong, and everything I say is just IMHO. 

 

 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

26 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

It was a scrum.  Not an attempted coup.  Don't you know this Matt?

Ron-

The feds can seize all smartphone records, including texts, locations and verbal messages.

The feds have convicted hundreds in the Capitol scrum, using just such evidence. Many people incriminated themselves, btw, by texting triumphantly from inside Capitol grounds (and many, many said, in real time, they were let in). 

But not one text has emerged linking the White House, or Trump & Co., to the scrummers. 

Frankly, I would be surprised at nothing Trump did (or the Deep State, for that matter). 

But I will presume Trump innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, my standard for everybody. 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

24 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Ron-

The feds can seize all smartphone records, including texts, locations and verbal messages.

The feds have convicted hundreds in the Capitol scrum, using just such evidence. Many people incriminated themselves, btw, by texting triumphantly from inside Capitol grounds (and many, many said, in real time, they were let in). 

But not one text has emerged linking the White House, or Trump & Co., to the scrummers. 

Frankly, I would be surprised at nothing Trump did (or the Deep State, for that matter). 

But I will presume Trump innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, my standard for everybody. 

 

 

Oswald was never proven guilty in a court of law either, much less the Warren Omission.  So, are they equivalent?  Not hardly.  LHO was innocent.  The chump is facing his due soon, we can only hope for the sake of Democracy, by a different commission.

[Guest]

Another piece from Tom Luongo on Ukraine, Russia and the Davos lot. I personally disagree with one fundamental element to this. However, I think those of you who are open minded will find it an interesting read.

__________________________________
THE WAR OF GALL AGAINST All

Natural Selection or Selective Breeding?

One of the eternal conflicts in human behavior breaks

down to the question of nature vs. nurture. Are humans

capable of overcoming their inherent nature, shaped by the

conditions under their formative lived experience or are they

doomed to always express that nature regardless of

circumstances?

I won’t dare try to answer that question or even muck things up

with my opinion. That said, what I think I know is that such

simplistic models of human behavior reduce to hand-waving

justifications for whatever irresponsible or selfish thing

someone wants to do.

Thomas Hobbes was definitely on the nature side of the

argument. To Hobbes man exists all the time, without fail, in a

state of nature which he believed manifested as a ‘war of all

against all,’ bellum omnium contra omnes, in the Latin.

Whether I agree with Hobbes or not (I don’t) is irrelevant, what

I can tell you is that when you push people far enough, they

reach that Hobbesian state very quickly. When you’re fighting

for your life, you do whatever it takes. We are in the early days

of World War III, where there is a very clear push to reduce as

many people as possible to that Hobbesian state of nature.

On the other hand, the purpose of civilization, the basis of

which is non-coercive exchange, is to alleviate the anxiety of

scarcity. We are all born into this world naked and crying. It is

the ultimate state of poverty. In that sense, poverty is the

default condition of all of us and the story of our lives is the

struggle to alleviate that poverty and build some small measure

of comfort.

War is the ultimate act of destruction of that comfort. It is

almost never the right answer, but it is also, sadly, sometimes

the only option. We are now fighting a war on every front

conceivable: economic, military, political, social, and cultural.

It is reducing the best of us to slavering animals and it is our

job here to remain above that state, to not give in to the

temptation of seeing everything in terms of threats to our

survival, even though we are beset on all sides by things that

appear to be threats.
 

At the same time, we have to admit to ourselves that we are, in

fact, at war.

This isn’t a war of our choosing. But it is a war we now have to

fight, as much within ourselves as against those we perceive to

be our enemies. Davos wants you to believe that enemy is

Russian President Vladimir Putin because he is their enemy.

Putin’s actions in Ukraine are both deplorable and, sadly,

understandable given the perceived threats to Russia.

Putin is Davos’ enemy because he holds certain cards that, if he

plays them well, I believe will leave Russia battered but

standing while the West beats itself to death against her

borders, both physical and financial.

They want you to believe that their enemy is your enemy

because it suits their purpose, not yours. Putin wants you to

believe his war is righteous because he opposes Davos. But the

reality is that their real enemy is you.

Because for them to stay in control of the system they’ve

erected requires you to believe they have your best interests at

heart, that their management of society is for the betterment of

us all, and not just enriching them. And they want you to

believe Putin is the only one acting out of Hobbesian motives

while they are righteous.

Because of this, you are who this war of theirs ultimately

targets, Putin represents one group of people standing in their

way.

Make no mistake, this is a war now where all of their power

will be deployed against all of ours.

The Power of Panic

Last month I discussed what I thought was the psychology of

Davos and their acolytes; an arrogance and sense of entitlement

which fuels their need to aggressively pursue dominance over

all aspects of the global landscape.

That need has become an addiction: to power, money,

influence, and their own ideology.
 

They have corrupted so many in this pursuit many of their

lieutenants – the Pelosis, Romneys, Blairs, Draghis, Bidens, etc.

– are now facing the most ignominious exposure at the end of

their careers.

Davos’ addiction to control and power has turned truly

aggressive because as their plans have unraveled, they have

become frantic, like a gambler on a losing streak that loses all

sense of himself and won’t stop until he’s past the point of no

return.

That’s where I feel we are today. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

was the one move that could force everything out into the open

– COVID, the financial system rot, political insanity, Climate

Change, petty bribery, and corruption – and leave all their plans

in ruin.

Ukraine is where many of the bodies are buried for Davos.

We’ve been arming Ukraine since the days just after Viktor

Yanukovich was deposed and the Donbass declared

independence touching off a civil war. RussiaGate ran through

Ukraine because of the West’s

extensive network of intelligence

agents working there.

The depth of the corruption in

Ukraine’s gas industry touches

many senior members of

Congress, from Nancy Pelosi to

Mitt Romney and, most famously,

President Biden himself.

These are the things we know.

The crimes are likely far deeper

than that.

When President Trump dared to touch this third rail of

American politics in a phone call with President Zelenskyy to

look into some of these things, the most Davos-affiliated

members of the Democratic party literally lost their minds and

impeached him for corruption that Joe Biden is actually guilty

of.

The prospect of Putin and Russia gaining control over the

valuable parts of Ukraine, what was Novorossiya, east of the

Dnieper river, adding to its already substantial hold over global

commodity and energy production, was their personal red line.

Without Ukraine there is no chance to achieve the goal of

subjugating Russia. If Russia falls, then they can set their sights

on its partner in anti-Davos behavior China. Without a victory

in Ukraine Russia has no chance of an independent future.

Without Ukraine, there can be no Great Reset, because without

control over the global flow of energy, specifically into Europe,

Davos would not be able to manipulate supply and demand to

maintain the illusion working in our best interests to move the

world off hydrocarbons and fight Climate Change.

From the moment of Putin’s order to invade it has been my

conclusion that his best path to victory was to suck the West

into a war of attrition that would place Davos and the West into

a no-win situation.

Putin, I believe, rightly calculated what the limit of the Wests’

response to the invasion would be. It wasn’t hard to figure out.

Politically, active participation in the war is a non-starter for

most Europeans, Brits and Americans. No one in these 

countries wants to fight on behalf of Ukraine. Would they be

willing to do without a few things? Yes, but only for so long.

Pay a little extra for gasoline, food, etc. for a few months to

punish the “bad guy?” Absolutely.

But not much more than that. We simply do not trust or

respect our leadership today like we did after 9/11, where the

shock of an attack on US soil could bring the country together.

Today we’re weary and frightened by the discord within our

society, of two years of COVID-19 restrictions and now rampant

inflation because of supply chain breakdowns which has the

entire West, not just the US, staring at prices for basic

necessities we cannot fathom. There isn’t a lot of capacity for

privation to fight the “good fight.”

The anti-Russian sentiment ginned up over the past six years

across the West was strong enough to get people to put

Ukrainian flags on their Twitter feeds, but not enough to

mobilize a massive war effort to oust the demonic Putin from

the country.

It was one thing to send some

weapons to Ukraine, to put on

some sanctions and make the case

for Putin to be overthrown. It

was quite another to go to war.

So, politically, no matter how

hard the governments across the

West made the case for it and the

media worked to sell it, the

needle didn’t move.

At the same time, as Dexter and I

agree on, now that we are nearly three months into this war,

Russia’s intelligence and military failures in the northern

campaign left it without a path to a clear and concise victory.

This has emboldened the staunchest warhawks in the West to

lose their minds, rushing aid to Ukraine and passing massive

spending bills to support them while people at home are trying

to figure out how to afford $6 per gallon gasoline.

If the headlines are correct, we’re only at the beginning of our

problems, not towards the end. By contrast, the inflation of the

1970’s came as a consequence of our fighting the Vietnam War

for more than a decade. We had to work through that, but the

fighting was over. Now we’re being asked to fund another

overseas war, akin to the 1930’s but without the same sense of

purpose or clear casus belli for us.

The initial attacks on Russia’s financial system have failed

completely. The sanctions have only made Russia’s balance

sheet stronger. Putin’s counterattacks, demanding rubles for

exports from ‘Unfriendly’ countries has our capital markets on

the verge of melting down.

After those failures in the North of Ukraine, Russia regrouped

and settled into a different posture, a war of attrition in eastern

Ukraine, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces are dug in hard

and are now suffering under relentless artillery fire, slowly and

inevitably degrading their defenses and will to fight which the

West will have to pour money into to keep stable.

What was expected to be a short, decisive war, from both sides’

perspective, has turned into a meat grinder. The problem for

the West is that that meat grinder turns slowly. It takes the war

off the front pages of the news. It leaves the political class at

home vulnerable to exhaustion.
 

Putin risks the same exhaustion in Russia, but the perception of

the conflict is different. The Russian people see this much more

as an extension of a war that never really ended, one that’s

been going on for more than a hundred years.

It means they are committed to this war, almost regardless of

the outcome.

Now that the Russian military has settled into a different

posture, it allows Russia to bring their other major weapon to

bear, using its prodigious commodity exports to keep the flow

of capital into Russia from non-Western sources high.

The War Turns Inward

The way I see this, Davos and the West overplayed their

political and financial hand at the outset of the war, cutting

Russian banks from SWIFT, seizing foreign exchange reserves,

making a mockery of property rights and international law to

punish Russia for a conflict which, officially, the West is not a

party to.

But the biggest problem now is that

since the West did this it has few

options left. The existing sanctions are

causing untold damage to western

economies. Countries dependent on

Russian energy are watching their

currencies collapse as their companies

scramble to buy rubles to pay for

commodities they used to buy with

debt.

More than twenty of them have opened

accounts with Gazprombank to pay for

energy with rubles. Euro, yen, pound

and dollar deposits have to be

converted into rubles at their expense.

And because of sanctions,

Gazprombank has no use or need of

those currencies, so they dump them

on the open market.

This is part of the reason why they are

all falling so rapidly versus the ruble.

This sets in motion the beginnings of

an internationalization of the ruble as a

currency traders will keep on hand. It

reverses the old dynamic of Russia

having to figure out how to stabilize its

currency flow. Now that burden is on their trade partners.

Now, not only does Japan, the EU, and the U.K. in particular,

get the debt they have to issue to print that currency to buy

those exports, they get the inflation, and the currency

devaluation that goes along with it.

Because this is a war waged by oligarchs and politicians for

their own benefit they are now in a serious bind. The greater

war, outside the military one in Ukraine, is going badly. Weak

political coalitions with weak popular mandates are facing real

opposition to pursuing this much further.

As the economic situation in the West deteriorates the clock

winds down on how much time Davos has to get things in place

to keep Russia bogged down in Ukraine for years, which has

become the stated goal of this campaign.

Moreover, as the realization of just how badly Davos has

miscalculated washes over them, there is a palpable sense of 

panic coming from the various moves hitting the headlines all

at once.

The EU made a big stink for weeks about embargoing all

Russian energy. It was the kind of over-the-top headline grabber

designed to shore up their image as having agency in this fight,

only to run into the realities of managing 27 different countries

with deep economic ties to Russia.

The EU tried to ‘pull a Trump’ and even threaten to sanction

shippers who transported Russian oil. That ran right into the

opposition of Greek and Cypriot shipping oligarchs who flatly

refused to go along with that.

Hungary and Slovakia publicly said no as well, negotiating for

an exemption of pipeline-delivered oil as landlocked countries,

they simply have no other option than Russia.

Germany wants carve outs for its gas imports.

By the time the EU Commission is done putting together a

sanctions package that restricts Russian energy imports it might

as well have not even bothered.

But nothing screams desperation more

than the panicked $40 billion aid

package to Ukraine fast-tracked

through the US Congress only to run

into temporary opposition by Rand

Paul (R-KY), whose comments to the

Senate reminded everyone just how

little the US spends on its own people

in comparison.

The package is immense and makes

clear to everyone that Ukraine is now

just a protectorate of the US, with its

own budget line items.

That our legislature is that willing to

put that amount of money on the table

that quickly with vast bipartisan

support tells you just how afraid they

are of the exposure a full loss of access

in Ukraine represents.

The inertia on Capitol Hill, Downing

Street and in Brussels is strong. There

will be no course correction anytime

soon. They fought hard to provoke this

war and they are the ones prolonging

it. They need Putin as the scapegoat for

their own failures as stewards of their countries and their

economies.

The pathetic “Putin Price Hike” narrative conceived by the

screenwriters at the DNC has fallen on deaf ears. Americans

have stopped spending. Credit card debt is exploding while the

savings rate has collapsed.

Housing prices have peaked, the CPI is still rising month-overmonth

and producer prices continue to soar. Consumer

confidence in the US trending down which will begin to

pressure retail sales figures this summer. GDP growth turned

negative in Q1.

The failure of Davos to secure political victories over the Federal

Reserve has the European Union staring at a fiscal and

economic black hole as the euro collapses towards parity with

the dollar and rising US interest rates are bringing European

yields out of the depths of negative territory.
 

The Biden administration is so scared by the political situation

coming into the mid-term elections they are lashing out in

every possible direction to implement as much of Davos’ antihumanist

agenda as possible before being swept from power in

November.

Between now and then we will have to endure another summer

of violence from outraged leftists this time over the reversal of

Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, gas and diesel fuel

rationing and soaring food prices as fertilizer costs have

skyrocketed.

I can’t think of one thing that the Biden administration has

done for the American people versus that of Europe and/or

Ukraine this year. Natural gas prices in the US are above

$7.00/mcf because so much of it is being exported to Europe as

LNG to help them not pay for “Putin’s War Machine.”

And yet, despite this even Bloomberg had to admit recently that

Russia’s oil revenue had not only recovered from the sanctions

crisis in February, but has soared more than 50% since the

beginning of the year.

It doesn’t mean Russia is fully out of the woods, but it does

mean that Europe has no real options to diversify their energy

in the near term and that gives Russia a lot of leverage over

NATO for the rest of this year and next, if it establishes some

real military victories in Ukraine.

I mean, even if NATO did want to fight the Russians over

Ukraine, how would they do that needing to buy the oil and gas

necessary to run the war from the very people they are

fighting?

All In or All Over?

To this day, three months into this war, no one in D.C. has made

the argument as to why this war is our responsibility. Because

of this, along with the obvious need for Russia’s exports of base

commodities to the world, the political fractures within the US

and Europe are deepening by the day.

With their back to the wall Davos and the governments it

controls are now turning predatory, stealing more from their

own people to support their grand dreams of global

domination. Some of their actions are just part of their

prewritten malevolent script, but daily we are seeing them

issuing orders which make no sense, an oil buying embargo, in

the vain hope that in the case of EU sanctions, the sixth time’s

the charm.

This is why they are rushing to send the world hurtling towards

a war of all against all. As the true costs of this war come

crashing down on all of us – food, fuel and electricity shortages,

runaway inflation -- it will get increasingly difficult for political

leadership to blame Putin for choices they made.

But there will be no shortage of attempts to divide us further

over their choices. Hobbes will have his day here as everyone’s

worst impulses are revealed.
 

Senate Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) let the cat out of

the bag during discussion of the massive Ukraine aid package

designed to prolong the war rather than accept defeat, “I know

there's a lot of politics here, but we're at war.”

You don’t say, Steny?

—————————————-

PS I might have made a hash of the copy + pasting, as it was an awkward format on the PDF. Please feel free to refer to the Gold, Goats and Guns issue 57. 
https://tomluongo.me/

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Chris Barnard

[Benjamin Cole]

 

[Douglas Caddy]

 

 

ttps://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russian-invasion-tanks-towed-tractors/31756402.html

[W. Niederhut]

      Kevin Drum took time out from his cruise down the Seine this week to expertly debunk Ben and Chris's WSJ propaganda piece about Hillary and the silly Durham/Sussman trial. *

      Ben never reads references debunking his "theories," but I'll post this one for inquiring minds.

      As for Ben's ludicrous, ongoing attempts to deny Trump's January 6th coup plot, Trump and his coup co-conspirators probably used SIGNAL to conceal their incriminating texts.  For Ben, this is obvious proof of Trump's innocence. 🤥

* Hillary didn’t do it

https://jabberwocking.com/hillary-didnt-do-it/