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Chinese Single Immunization with H5N1 Virus-like Particle Vaccine Protects Chickens Against H5N1 Influenza but Enables More Viral Shedding

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse™ | June 22, 2024

Poultry farmers are finding out that culling and vaccination of poultry may be futile as migratory water fowl spread H5N1 from farm to farm.

Kong, et al, from College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China, tested a new poultry vaccine on 10 chickens. While the new product protected the birds from a lethal dose of the virus, the chickens retained it in the nasopharynx and were able to shed the virus theoretically to more animals.

Kong D, He Y, Wang J, Chi L, Ao X, Ye H, Qiu W, Zhu X, Liao M, Fan H. A single immunization with H5N1 virus-like particle vaccine protects chickens against divergent H5N1 influenza viruses and vaccine efficacy is determined by adjuvant and dosage. Emerg Microbes Infect. 2024 Dec;13(1):2287682. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2023.2287682. Epub 2023 Dec 30. PMID: 37994795; PMCID: PMC10763850.

It appears the only method that will remain for farmers is to allow for natural immunity with wave after wave of bird flu expected as mallard ducks and other species spread H5N1 around the globe. Mass vaccination of birds and humans appears ill-advised with current products.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Google is Criticized As it Suspends Reform UK Ads During Election Campaign

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 22, 2024

Google has suspended the advertising account of Reform UK, a political party in the United Kingdom, formerly known as the Brexit Party. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, took to Twitter to express his outrage, labeling the move as “election interference.”

Google’s suspension comes at the height of the election campaign with, less than two weeks to go until the country goes to a vote on July 4th.

In his tweet, Farage stated: “🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨 Big Tech giant @Google has BLOCKED our Ad Accounts. They are trying to stop the Reform message.” He also called on Matt Brittin, President of Google Europe, Middle East, and Africa, to address the issue urgently, indicating the party’s demand for immediate action.

This incident raises significant concerns about the role of Big Tech companies in political processes, particularly in the context of advertising and free speech, and during a campaign season where time is of the essence.

While Google has not yet publicly responded to Farage’s allegations or provided a detailed explanation for the suspension, such actions are typically justified by violations of the company’s advertising policies.

Reform UK, which has positioned itself as a critic of the establishment and advocate for major reforms in British politics, relies heavily on digital platforms to disseminate its message.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Columbia University students’ charges dropped after pro-Palestine protest arrests

MEMO | June 22, 2024

New York Criminal Court Judge Kevin McGrath decided to dismiss the cases filed against 30 people arrested during pro-Palestine protests in Hamilton Hall at Columbia University.

According to the Guardian: “Stephen Millan, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, told the court on Thursday his office would not prosecute 30 protesters who were Columbia students at the time of the arrest, nor two who were Columbia employees, citing prosecutorial discretion and lack of evidence.”

The prosecutor added that no police officers were harmed during the arrests.

Judge McGrath confirmed that the cases filed against 30 detained protesters and university employees had been dropped.

On 18 April, 2024, students and academics who condemn the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip began a sit-in on the campus of Columbia University in New York, demanding that its administration stop its academic cooperation with Israeli universities and withdraw its investments from companies supporting the occupation of Palestinian territories.

After the intervention of the police and the arrest of dozens of protesters, the protests expanded to other universities and spread to countries such as France, the UK, Germany, Canada and India, all of which witnessed demonstrations in support of their American counterparts and demands to stop the Gaza war and boycott companies that supply weapons to Israel.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Rafah: More than 50 martyred in Israeli attack on tents, homes in Al-Shati Camp

MEMO | June 22, 2024

Twenty-one Palestinians were martyred and dozens injured on Friday in a new massacre committed by the Israeli army bombing tents housing displaced Palestinians in the Al-Mawasi area, west of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported in a statement that the martyrs and wounded were recovered after Israeli tanks bombed a displacement camp in the Al-Mawasi area with artillery shells.

Eyewitnesses reported that two Merkava tanks mounted a hill opposite the Shakoush area and fired artillery shells at a gathering of displaced people near the gate of the field hospital affiliated with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The eyewitnesses added that ambulances immediately rushed to the scene and began transporting the martyrs and wounded to field hospitals. Operations to recover people are ongoing.

The Civil Defence Service in the Gaza Strip conveyed in a statement: “Our crews transported a number of martyrs and injured displaced persons in the Shakoush area, northwest of Rafah Governorate after being targeted by Israeli artillery shells.”

The Israeli army is seeking to push displaced Palestinians into the Al-Mawasi area on the coastal strip of the Mediterranean Sea, claiming that they are safe areas.

Al-Mawasi is a sandy area along the coastline, extending from southwest of the city of Deir Al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip, passing west of Khan Yunis to west of Rafah (south).

The area is largely open and not residential. It also lacks infrastructure, sewage networks, electricity lines, communications networks and the Internet, while most of its land is divided into agricultural land or greenhouses.

The displaced people in Al-Mawasi are living in a tragic situation and are suffering a significant shortage of essential resources such as water, sanitation, medical care and food.

Director of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City Fadel Naim announced in a statement on Friday published by the Ministry of Health on Telegram: “It has been a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City, as nearly 30 martyrs arrived at the hospital so far as a result of several Israeli attacks since the morning.”

Earlier on Friday, medical sources reported that seven Palestinians were killed and 20 others were injured as a result of an attack by an Israeli warplane on a house in the Al-Shati Camp, west of Gaza City.

The sources added that six Palestinians were martyred and a number injured as a result of another bombing launched by Israeli warplanes on two residential apartments belonging to the Mushtaha and Abu Al-Atta families behind the Latin Patriarchate School in central Gaza City.

The Civil Defence Service announced the deaths of five Palestinians due to an Israeli warplane bombing the Gaza Municipality headquarters on Al-Wahda Street.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US vows ‘security support’ for Israel in all-out war with Lebanon

The Cradle | June 22, 2024

Senior US officials confirmed that if Israel wages a full out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Washington is fully prepared to back its ally in Tel Aviv, CNN reported on 22 June.

According to a senior administration official speaking with CNN, the US officials gave the assurances in person to a delegation of Israeli security officials visiting Washington this week.

The Israeli officials, including Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, met with US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and White House Middle East affairs coordinator Brett McGurk.

The face-to-face assurances come amid heightened tensions between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group. In recent weeks, Hezbollah has escalated its attacks on Israel’s military infrastructure near the Lebanese border.

At the same time, Israeli officials have issued multiple threats claiming they will launch a major attack on Lebanon, including attacking civilian areas such as in the capital, Beirut.

Israeli officials are frustrated that they are not able to provide security for some 100,000 displaced Israelis to return to settlements in the north.

When discussing the prospects of a major war, US officials said they would offer Israel the security assistance it needs but would not deploy US troops to the ground.

If Hezbollah were to significantly expand the scale of its attacks on Israel, resulting in the deaths of Israelis, US officials expect Israel to respond with full force, CNN added.

Earlier this week, US officials warned that in the event of an all-out war, Hezbollah would be able to overwhelm the Iron Dome with its powerful arsenal of over 100,000 missiles and rockets.

“Israeli officials have told the US they believe the Iron Dome could be vulnerable, particularly in northern Israel, and have been surprised at the sophistication of Hezbollah’s strikes to date,” the US officials went on to tell CNN.

One Israeli official cited by the outlet confirmed that Hezbollah attacks could be “challenging for the system to defend against.”

It is also unclear whether Israel will have the troops to launch a full-scale war with ground troops. Israel faces a serious enlistment crisis and shortage of soldiers in the Israeli army and has lost many troops to death and injury fighting Hamas in Gaza.

On 21 June, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to schedule an urgent meeting to discuss extending compulsory military service to three years.

“The new security reality requires finding means to continue the war effort,” Gallant was quoted as saying. Gallant has requested that Netanyahu approve this in government within the coming days.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraqi resistance vows to assist Hezbollah if new Israeli war on Lebanon waged

Press TV – June 22, 2024

Fighters from Iraqi anti-terror resistance groups have expressed their full solidarity with Hezbollah, stressing they will fight alongside their comrades in the Lebanese group in case the Tel Aviv regime decides to wage a new war on Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Akhbar daily newspaper, citing unnamed sources at the Islamic Resistance in Iraq – an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, reported that Kata’ib Hezbollah, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba groups have announced their readiness to participate alongside Hezbollah in confronting any possible Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

The sources added that the Iraqi resistance groups are awaiting Hezbollah’s approval.

Kadhim al-Fartousi, the spokesman for the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror resistance group, stated that Hezbollah enjoys great prowess, powerful and effective weapons, and large numbers of fighters, which are sufficient to repel Israeli aggression irrespective of its extent.

“Should the need arise for Iraqi fighters in southern Lebanon, we will be the first to face up to the Zionist enemy’s act of aggression [alongside Hezbollah]. This is a Muslim and Arab issue,” he pointed out.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that “no place” in the Israeli-occupied territories would be spared from the group’s weapons in case of a full-blown war.

Nasrallah emphasized that an incursion into the Galilee region remains an option on the table should Israel invade southern Lebanon.

He also said they would attack any other country in the region that assisted Israel in the war effort, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training exercises.

Hezbollah has been carrying out almost daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions in retaliation for the regime’s aggression against Lebanon and in solidarity with Palestinians.

The genocidal war in Gaza has killed at least 37,551 Palestinians, predominantly women and children so far.

At least 455 people have also been killed on the Lebanese border, including more than 80 civilians, according to a tally by AFP.

Two Israeli wars waged against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006 were met with strong resistance from Hezbollah, resulting in the retreat of the regime in both conflicts.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US magazine: ‘Hamas is winning’

MEMO | June 22, 2024

US Foreign Affairs magazine confirmed on Friday: “Hamas is stronger today than it was on October 7. Its cause is more popular and its appeal stronger than before October 7.”

The magazine wrote in a report: “After nine months of gruelling war, it is time to recognize the stark reality: there is no military-only solution to defeat Hamas,” adding that “Hamas is neither defeated nor on the verge of defeat.”

It also noted: “Israel has invaded northern and southern Gaza with approximately 40,000 combat troops, forcibly displaced 80 percent of the population, killed over 37,000 people, dropped at least 70,000 tons of bombs on the territory (surpassing the combined weight of bombs dropped on London, Dresden, and Hamburg in all of World War II), destroyed or damaged over half of all buildings in Gaza, and limited the territory’s access to water, food, and electricity, leaving the entire population on the brink of famine.”

According to the magazine: “Although many observers have highlighted the immorality of Israel’s conduct, Israeli leaders have consistently claimed that the goal of defeating Hamas and weakening its ability to launch new attacks against Israeli civilians must take precedence over any concerns about Palestinian lives. The punishment of the population of Gaza must be accepted as necessary to destroy the power of Hamas.”

However, Foreign Affairs states: “The central flaw in Israel’s strategy is not a failure of tactics or the imposition of constraints on military force—just as the failure of the United States’ military strategy in Vietnam had little to do with the technical proficiency of its troops or political and moral limits on the uses of military power. Rather, the overarching failure has been a gross misunderstanding of the sources of Hamas’s power. To its great detriment, Israel has failed to realize that the carnage and devastation it has unleashed in Gaza has only made its enemy stronger.”

“Despite its losses, Hamas remains in de facto control of large swaths of Gaza, including those areas where the territory’s civilians are now concentrated,” it added. “According to a recent Israeli assessment, Hamas now has more fighters in the northern areas of Gaza, which the IDF seized in the fall at the cost of hundreds of soldiers, than it does in Rafah in the south.”

The report also pointed out that Hamas: “Could still strike in Israel; Hamas likely has some 15,000 mobilized fighters—roughly ten times the number of fighters who carried out the October 7 attacks. Further, more than 80 percent of the group’s underground tunnel network remains usable for planning, storing weapons, and evading Israeli surveillance, capture, and attacks. Most of Hamas’s top leadership in Gaza remains intact.”

The magazine explained that the Israeli bombing and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip did not lead to a decline in Palestinian popular support, and: “Support for armed attacks against Israeli civilians appears to have risen especially among Palestinians in the West Bank, which is now rightly on par with the consistently high levels of support for these attacks in Gaza, showing that Hamas has made extensive gains across Palestinian society since October 7.”

A US official told television broadcasting company CBS that Israel is not close to achieving its goal of destroying Hamas, given the lack of an Israeli plan for the day after the war in Gaza.

According to Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari: “This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear — it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” adding that the group will remain in control of the Gaza Strip unless Israel “develops something else to replace it.”

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

USS Eisenhower ordered back to US from Red Sea amid YAF attacks

Al Mayadeen | June 22, 2024

US officials have greenlit the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was dispatched to the Red Sea to counter the Yemeni Armed Forces’ operations in support of Gaza, to return home.

The Eisenhower will be returning to Norfolk in the state of Virginia, the US Naval Institute’s news service mentioned, citing an anonymous official.

The reports added that the warship would be replaced by an aircraft carrier that would operate in the Pacific, with the closest known to be operating in Asia being the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

In early June, the spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF), Brigadier General Yahya Saree, confirmed that USS Eisenhower was subject to two attacks by the YAF within 24 hours.

Commenting on the announcement, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Sanaa government, Hussein al-Ezzi, considered the withdrawal of the Eisenhower from the Red Sea a positive sign, whether it was for maintenance or a permanent move.

On his account on X, al-Ezzi also vowed that the Roosevelt would not fare better than the Eisenhower, which has been significantly damaged, calling on the US, UK, and their allies to immediately end the militarization of the Red Sea and to change the aggressive behavior toward Arab and Muslim countries, especially Yemen.

This follows a report on Wednesday by ABC News that fatigue has begun to set in aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red Sea.

As the carrier and its 7,000-strong crew near their ninth consecutive month at sea—the most prolonged naval engagement since World War II—questions arise about sustaining such an intense combat operation.

The carrier’s deployment has already been extended twice, leading to growing fatigue among its crew.

At the Pentagon, leaders were grappling with whether to heed Navy calls to bring the carrier home or US Central Command’s plea for an extended stay – hinging on the carrier’s role in supporting “Israel.”

A recent report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency revealed that the YAF have conducted no fewer than 175 operations on US naval vessels, coalition ships, and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November 19.

In early June, the leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, warned that the YAF would launch an even larger and more potent attack on the USS Eisenhower whenever possible.

It is crucial to note that the YAF has repeatedly stated that it does not intend to disrupt maritime routes for all, but instead is specifically targeting ships and vessels affiliated with the Israeli occupation or facilitating its genocide of the Palestinian people by shipping goods and equipment to the Israeli occupation.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

A new multipolar security system based on ‘Pax Rossiya’

Strategic Culture Foundation | June 21, 2024

For several years now, Russia, China and other members of the expanding BRICS alliance have been formulating progressive trade and financial relations of the emerging multipolar world order. That order is based on mutual respect and partnership grounded in international law and the UN Charter.

The BRICS concept is rightly the zeitgeist of our time. It is rallying more nations to its fold especially those of the so-called Global South which for decades have been subjected to the unilateralism of Western hegemony.

The trouble is that for a new world order based on equality and fairness to succeed in practice, it needs to be secure from arbitrary military aggression and imperialist tyranny. In other words, a new security architecture is required to underpin the development of a multipolar world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been advocating for a new indivisible international security system. This week saw the plan for a new security arrangement put into action.

The Russian leader embarked on state visits to North Korea and Vietnam during which he signed new strategic partnership and defense accords.

Ahead of his trip to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Putin outlined the integrated vision thus: “We are also ready for close cooperation to make international relations more democratic and stable… To do this, we will develop alternative mechanisms of trade and mutual settlements that are not controlled by the West, and jointly resist illegitimate unilateral restrictions. And at the same time – to build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia.”

The concept of indivisible security is by no means limited to Eurasia. Russia has signaled the same principles apply to Latin America, Africa and indeed every other corner of the world.

During Putin’s meetings with Chairman Kim Jong Un of the DPRK and President Lo Tam of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the strategic partnerships agreed were not merely about military defense and security. They involved comprehensive partnerships for the development of trade, transport, technology, education, science and medicine.

Nevertheless, it was clear that the commitment to strategic partnership was underpinned by new mutual defense accords. This was most explicit in the treaty signed with the DPRK which furnished “mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties”.

This is a game-changer. It totally upends the geopolitical calculations of the United States and its NATO partners who have been unilaterally expanding military force and provocations in Eurasia and elsewhere.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has ramped up aggression in the Asia-Pacific against China and North Korea with impunity. Under his watch, the US has increasingly moved nuclear forces into the region to intimidate not only Beijing and Pyongyang but also Moscow. The Biden administration has been assiduous in forming hostile military formations in the region with its NATO partners, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

Year after year, the United States has built up weapon systems in Taiwan to provoke China and on the Korean Peninsula to threaten North Korea.

This unilateral aggression and “might is right” arrogance underpin the notion of Pax Americana that prevailed for decades after the Second World War. That notion was always a cruel euphemism for American imperialist violence to impose its economic and political interests. The Korean and Vietnam Wars in which millions of civilians were annihilated were the real-world grim translations of Pax Americana and its fraudulent “rules-based order”.

Geopolitical perceptions have dramatically changed in a few short years. The U.S. and its Western partners – a global minority – have come to be seen by most people of the world as rogue states that have trashed international law through illegal wars and unilateral bullying with economic sanctions. The U.S. dollar and Washington’s relentless debt spending are seen as instruments of imperialist looting.

The BRICS multipolar world order is a welcome alternative to the mayhem of the Western-dominated system. The principles of fairness and cooperation are laudable and necessary to implement. But such principles must be reinforced with military defense and security for all. This is far from the one-sided “defense and security” of the United States and its NATO partners, which in reality is an Orwellian cover for aggression.

The defense commitments given by Russia to the DPRK this week can be seen as long overdue. One may wonder how the U.S. and its allies got away with threatening the people of North Korea for so long and denying Pyongyang the sovereign right to self-defense. Admittedly, Russia did previously support UN sanctions on North Korea over its missile program. That’s over.

The U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia that erupted in February 2022 was a wake-up call for Moscow and many people around the world.

Patently, the Western hegemonic system will stop at nothing to assert its neocolonialist privileges, even to the point of antagonizing a nuclear world war.

There is only one language that the U.S. and its minions understand – and that is the threat of devastating countervailing force.

Washington and its NATO lackeys think they can put missiles in Ukraine to hit Russia or in South Korea and Japan to hit North Korea – at no cost to their own security. Well, now, they might want to think again. There’s a new sheriff in town, as this week’s developments show.

A new global security system is being incarnate. Russia’s vision of indivisible, mutual security is shared by China and many other nations because it is fully compliant with international law and nations’ sovereignty.

Russia, China and other supporters of a multipolar world are not preemptively threatening anyone. But it takes the guarantee of unassailable nuclear powers, Russia and China, to make a new security system viable by restoring the deterrence towards the rogue states of the United States and NATO accomplices.

The defense accords between Russia, the DPRK and Vietnam are installments of the new security architecture that is needed in Eurasia and globally. The has-been American hegemon has been served notice that from now on its presumption of belligerence with impunity, to destroy nations, and to have a license to murder en masse is null and void.

Welcome to the new multipolar order and Pax Rossiya. All are welcome – except hegemonic rogue states.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US forces Russia to close visa centers – ambassador

RT | June 22, 2024

US authorities are closing both Russian visa center offices in the country and will deprive Russia’s diplomats of tax exemption, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has revealed.

The Russia Visa Application Center operates in Washington and New York, assisting those looking to get permits to travel to Russia with preparing the necessary papers and submitting them to the Russian consular offices.

“The Americans notified us that the visa center is closing,” Antonov told the journalists on Saturday. The move by Washington creates a “serious extra burden for us given the fact that our consulate general offices in Houston and New York are drained of blood” due to expulsions of Russian diplomats from the US, he stressed.

The decision to revoke tax exemption status from Russian embassy workers is another “petty, nasty attack” by Washington, the ambassador said. The cards are common practice and handed out to diplomats in all countries, he explained.

US officials didn’t provide any reasoning for their actions, Antonov noted. As for a possible response by Moscow, he said that “there is no need to make any rash moves. We need to consider what the specific consequences of what we will have to do.”

According to the ambassador, the Americans “are trying to break [Russia], trying to change [its] foreign policy, trying to force our diplomats to hide behind the walls of the embassy, to stop communicating and working,” he said.

“This will not happen. Until the last diplomat, while we remain here, we will keep performing our duties,” the ambassador assured.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have steadily deteriorated over the past decade, with the administration of former US President Barack Obama shutting down several Russian consulates after accusing Moscow of “interference” in the 2016 presidential election. The diplomatic row has only escalated since Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, prompting a wave of Western sanctions and several tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats by both countries.

Last month, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that Moscow may well downgrade its diplomatic ties with Washington if the West “continues on the path of escalation” in terms of supporting Ukraine or making hostile economic moves.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Debt Disaster: Why Global South Increasingly Sidelines the US Dollar

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 22.06.2024

Soaring US national debt may translate into a real disaster when supercharged by internal political fighting or de-dollarization among top emerging economies, US observers warn.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts that the US national debt will hit $50.7 trillion by 2034, but the true figure “surely will be much bigger,” wrote William Pesek, an award-winning journalist and author, for the Asia Times.

The CBO projected on June 18 that US debt would reach 122 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2034, far surpassing the nation’s record-high public debt-to-GDP ratio of 106 percent in the aftermath of World War II. The watchdog also expects that interest costs for maintaining the debt will climb to $892 billion in 2024 (from $352 billion in 2021).

Pesek named defense funding, social safety net outlays and tax cuts unmatched by revenue increases as being the major drivers behind the debt growth, adding that they would become even costlier in the future.

He also quotes Goldman Sachs economists as predicting that the US debt-to-GDP ratio will hit 130 percent by 2034, i.e. 8 percentage points higher than the CBO estimates. Judging by the present dynamics, it could be far higher than that, according to the journalist.

The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald F. Seib appears to share Pesek’s concerns: “Over the centuries and across the globe, nations and empires that blithely piled up debt have, sooner or later, met unhappy ends.”

The Washington Post’s Jacob Bogage echoes his counterparts in referring to the spending spree under the Trump and Biden administrations, which included huge tax cuts, various social programs and increasing defense expenditures.

“[Most recently], besides the annual appropriations, lawmakers approved a $95 billion foreign aid bill to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and make investments in the US industrial base, and Biden announced plans to forgive billions of dollars in student loans,” the correspondent noted.

When it comes to Ukraine, Congress has approved nearly $175 billion of funding and military assistance to support the Kiev regime and allied nations since 2022, as per the Committee for the Responsible Federal Budget. This spending has been repeatedly questioned by some US lawmakers, who referred to Kiev’s corruption, non-transparency and military failures. To complicate matters further, American lawmakers are complaining about US primary defense contractors tremendously overcharging the US government.

Meanwhile, Ukraine funding constitutes a fraction of the US growing military spending that rose by 2.3 percent from 2022 to reach $916 billion in 2023, or 68 percent of total NATO military spending, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). These expenditures only add to America’s bloated national debt.

According to Pesek, “this slow-motion economic disaster” related to Washington’s inability to balance its spending “could be sped up by political squabbling or by de-dollarization efforts among top emerging markets.”

He particularly refers to Biden’s economic policies and protectionist measures which are not making the US economy more resilient. According to the journalist, the White House’s latest 100 percent tariffs on China-made electric vehicles have hurt “global faith in the dollar or US Treasury securities” (of which the People’s Republic holds around $700 billion).

He warns that Global South countries are “viewing the US less and less as an adult in the room when it comes to economic and geopolitical affairs.”

“The most obvious example of disillusionment over US fiscal excesses is the pivot away from the US dollar,” Pesek notes, adding that there is no sign that the US government is ready to overhaul its economic approach.

“Nor is it safe to bet on the US debt only rising to $50 trillion a decade from now. As the real figure exceeds even the worst expectations, global markets could be in a world of hurt. And Washington will make it easy for Global South nations hoping to sideline the dollar,” he concludes.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

BIRD FLU PANIC RISES

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | June 20, 2024

The bird flu vaccine is now in full development for not just humans but for cattle as well. Watch as we break down the COVID-like pre-positioning and how a critically-thinking public may not fall in line this time around.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Video | | Leave a comment