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Grading the uses of the Defense Production Act during COVID Mania

By Jordan Schachtel | June 6, 2022

With President Biden beginning this week by invoking the Defense Production Act (this time, to build solar panels) we figured it’s time to take a look at what happened to the DPA during COVID Mania, and explore how it has been used (abused) since March of 2020.

For starters:

The Defense Production Act is a federal law that was enacted in 1950 after the commencement of the Korean War.

The explanation of the bill, via Congress, goes as follows:

“To establish a system of priorities and allocations for materials and facilities, authorize the requisitioning thereof, provide financial assistance for expansion of productive capacity and supply, provide for price and wage stabilization, provide for the settlement of labor disputes, strengthen controls over credit, and by these measures facilitate the production of goods and services necessary for the national security, and for other purposes.”

In short, these are emergency powers granted to the executive with a precedent for being enacted during an actual war. These powers allow the president to compel private companies to work with the government on developing material goods that are supposed to be used for national security purposes.

During COVID Mania, the DPA has been routinely abused for our manufactured national emergency.

Let’s take a look at how the DPA has been utilized to “fight the virus.”

  • March 27, 2020: President Trump defines ventilators and PPE as “essential to the national defense,” and orders GM to start producing ventilators. The move came with bipartisan insistence. We later discovered that ventilators were possibly killing COVID patients.
    Grade: F
  • April 2, 2020: President Trump invokes the DPA to compel several American companies to produce N95 masks. Masks don’t work, though.
    Grade: Hysteria Sells
  • April 28, 2020: President Trump issues an executive order via the DPA to combat food insecurity and “to ensure a continued supply of protein to Americans.”
    Grade: Shrug Emoji
  • January 21, 2021: President Biden invokes the DPA to pursue a “sustainable public health supply chain.”
    Grade: Total Scam
  • March 2, 2021: Biden uses the DPA to give money to Merck so that they can produce more Johnson & Johnson COVID injections
    Grade: Facepalm Emoji
  • September 2021: Biden invokes the DPA to supply fire hose materials to California, citing the climate hoax, because Gavin Newsom’s regime did not effectively manage California’s forests.
    Grade: Avoidable Crisis
  • May 18, 2022: Biden uses the DPA to import baby formula from overseas because American supply became catastrophically short.
    Grade: Cringeworthy 
  • June 6, 2022: Biden issues DPA to advance the climate hoax narrative and give government funds to solar panel companies that otherwise would go bankrupt due to the unproductive nature of their businesses.
    Grade: Boondoggle

June 6, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | | Leave a comment

Poles told to forage for wood to heat homes

Samizdat | June 6, 2022

Authorities in Warsaw have allowed citizens to forage for firewood in forests to keep their homes heated amid spiralling energy costs. Poland is in the midst of a coal shortage after banning Russian imports.

“It is always possible, with the consent of foresters, to collect branches for fuel,” Deputy Minister of Climate and Energy Edward Siarka was quoted by Next Gazeta as saying on Monday.

Those wishing to gather wood must first undergo training and obtain permission from the local forestry unit. The report went on to clarify that people can only take branches already lying on the ground, and cannot cut down trees.

“Only branches can be gathered. At the same time, the collected branches cannot be thicker than seven centimeters,” said Katowice Directorate of State Forestry official Marek Mroz.

He explained that branches should be taken to the local forester, who will issue an invoice. Collectors will have to pay between seven and 30 zlotys ($7.02) for approximately 0.25 cubic meters of firewood.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government has blamed the war in Ukraine for skyrocketing energy costs. Critics, however, say the conflict is only partially to blame, arguing that costs have risen for the past seven years. Inflation in Poland has climbed to 14% in recent weeks, with fuel prices hitting 8 zlotys ($1.87) per liter.

Demand for raw materials in Poland has far exceeded domestic output since a ban on Russian coal was imposed. Throughout the military conflict in Ukraine, Warsaw has been calling for a complete embargo on Russian energy. In March, the EU nation said it would end all Russian energy imports, including oil, gas, and coal by the end of 2022.

According to media reports, Poland’s wood imports from Russia and Belarus stopped completely at the outbreak of the conflict, and those from Ukraine have fallen by around 75%.

June 6, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Hezbollah: US First Side to Blame for Preventing Lebanon from Gas Drilling

Al-Manar – June 6, 2022

Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sayyed Hashem Safieddine stressed on Sunday that the United States is the first side to blame for preventing Lebanon from gas drilling.

In a local ceremony in south Lebanon, Sayyed Safieddine said “Lebanon has potentials to extract gas and oil off its shores,” calling on the Lebanese state not to subdue to all forms of pressures exerted by foreign sides in this regards.

The Hezbollah official called on the Lebanese state to officially announce the Lebanese maritime borders and the disputed areas, “in order for the Resistance, Army and People to throng together and retrieve Lebanon’s rights regardless of the US stance.”

Sayyed Safieddine in this regard, stressed the importance of Lebanese unity in order to cope with the country’s political and economic crises.

“Resistance is the only choice to defend Lebanon’s wealth and preserve our victories,” he said in remarks carried by Al-Manar.

June 6, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Most Preposterous Lie Is Too Much Even For The Washington Post

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | June 03, 2022

When President Biden talks, there may or may not be any connection between what he says and the real world. Yes, you need to give every politician some leeway, since most of what any politician says will fall in the general realm of political exaggeration or hyperbole. But even within the disreputable category of politicians, Biden can take the lack of connection with reality to a whole new level.

You may have your own favorite among Biden’s preposterous statements. For me, the very most preposterous is one that he has been making repeatedly for the past several months, namely that his energy plans, including expansion of wind and solar electricity generation together with fossil fuel suppression, will save American families the very specific amount of $500 per year each. This claim has popped up in multiple places and multiple formulations. One example came in the State of the Union speech back in March, where Biden said, “Let’s cut energy costs for families an average of $500 a year by combatting climate change.”

It’s just not possible for anyone who thinks about the subject for even a few minutes to believe that building more and more wind and solar generation facilities as our primary sources of energy will do anything other than vastly increase the costs of energy for the American people. Even in the early phases of the process, where wind and solar generation are well less than half of electricity generation (and electricity is then only about a third of total energy consumption), you obviously need full backup from some dispatchable source, almost always fossil fuels, to make your electricity grid work. That means that you will come to have two fully redundant electricity generation systems, when previously you had only one to produce the same amount of electricity. Two fully redundant systems can’t possibly be cheaper than just one. Then, if you insist on phasing out the fossil fuel backup and replacing it with battery or some other storage, you have to add the cost of that storage to the mix. Readers here know that the cost of backing up wind and solar electricity generation with battery storage is truly monumental, potentially a large multiple of the entire U.S. GDP. For more on that subject, see some of my prior posts, for example here and here.

And this is not just a question of models and projections that can be debated. As more and more wind and solar generation facilities have been added to the electrical grid in various places, the inevitable dramatic rise in cost to the consumer has in fact occurred. Steven Hayward at PowerLine in a post on Wednesday reproduces graphs showing the results for two of the most enthusiastic adopters of the wind and sun for electricity, California and Australia. Here is the chart for California:

As California has added more and more wind and solar generation, its electricity rates to the consumer have followed a sharply increasing pattern, up some 58.3% from 2008 to 2021. Even after adding all that renewable capacity, the percent of California’s electricity production from the wind and sun in 2020 was still only about a third, according to a February 2022 Report from the California Energy Commission. Thus California has not yet even begun to confront the challenge of phasing out fossil fuel production and trying to back up its electricity grid with batteries — that will occur when the percentage of electricity from intermittent renewables gets past 50%. But note that dotted red line near the bottom of the chart: the 41 states with “low penetration” of wind and solar generation only had rate increases of 9.5% between 2008 and 2021.

And here’s the chart for Australia:

After declining gradually for decades, Australia’s consumer electricity prices have about doubled since 2005. The doubling coincides with the rapid addition of new wind and solar generation facilities since that time. And as with California, Australia’s generation from the intermittent renewables remains well below 50% of electricity generation, meaning that again the vast cost increases inherent in phasing out fossil fuel backup have not yet begun to hit to any significant degree.

Similar patterns of electricity prices soaring as renewable generation increases can be found in other places with high penetration of renewables, for example Germany and Denmark.

With these data and plenty more like them out there, Biden continues to double down on his assertion of the supposed $500 per family per year “savings” from his plan for green energy transition. In a an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on May 30, Biden put it this way:

A dozen CEOs of America’s largest utility companies told me earlier this year that my plan would reduce the average family’s annual utility bills by $500 and accelerate our transition from energy produced by autocrats.

That line finally got the Washington Post’s “fact checker,” Glenn Kessler, on the job. Kessler’s June 2 piece has the headline “Biden’s fantastical claim of $500 in annual utility savings.” Kessler started by tracking down a White House transcript of the meeting that Biden held in February with the group of utility executives. There was no mention at all of a supposed $500 projected saving in “annual utility bills”:

But when we located the transcript of Biden’s conversation with utility executives on Feb. 9, we found no reference to $500 in utility savings. The figure was also not mentioned in the White House readout of the meeting.

When Kessler asked the White House for the source of Biden’s number, he was then referred to a report of something called Rhodium Group that projected an approximate $500 per household saving by 2030 not from lower utility bills, but largely from consumers switching to electric cars. Putting aside for a moment whether consumers switching to electric cars could save anybody any money as the government strives to destroy the electrical grid, Kessler points to these obvious flaws in Biden’s statement:

But he didn’t hear that [$500 figure] from utility executives. And the report he is citing is not about household utility-bill savings. Most of the claimed savings comes from the reduced cost of driving. And the estimate is for 2030 — when he would no longer be president, even if he served a second term.

Kessler then awards Biden four Pinocchios. And that’s without even figuring out that Biden’s plan to add more wind and solar to the grid is guaranteed to make electricity prices soar.

June 5, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

‘Putin’s Price Hike’? US National Gas Prices Officially Double Since Biden Took Office

Samizdat | June 4, 2022

Gas prices began to climb soon after the 2020 election, with President Joe Biden blaming Covid, and then Vladimir Putin, and insisting that his administration’s policies had nothing to do with the situation. The Russian president dismissed Biden’s claims, saying Western ruling elites’ greed, “mistakes, myopia and ambitions” were responsible.

The national average price of a gallon of gasoline has officially more than doubled under President Biden, climbing from $2.39 a gallon on 20 January 2021 to $4.81 a gallon as of Saturday, the American Automobile Association (AAA) has reported.

According to the AAA’s national stats, Californians are paying the most, with the state’s retail price averaging $6.29 a gallon. Meanwhile, observers in northern California outside San Francisco spotted prices as high as a whopping $9.60 a gallon for regular on Friday afternoon. Georgia enjoys the lowest average prices in the union, with its residents paying $4.25 per gallon on average.

For perspective, the Ford F-150, America’s best-selling vehicle, has a 23-gallon fuel tank, meaning that someone who owns one in California would have to spend nearly $145 to fill ‘er-up. Georgian F-150 owners, meanwhile, would have to fork out about $97.75.

Gas prices unexpectedly became a top concern for the Biden administration amid the looming November midterms, with the White House tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve this week and expressing support for an OPEC move to boost global output after spending months trying to blame forces outside its ability to control and foreign governments.

Republicans place the blame squarely at the feet of Biden and the Democrats, suggesting that the ruling party’s federal spending programmes and ill-considered push away from hydrocarbons toward renewable energy were responsible.

“Joe Biden’s war on American energy has forced families across the country to empty their wallets to fill their tanks,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, Biden is doubling down on his disastrous agenda because he’s not the one paying the price – the American people are.”

Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected the administration’s responsibility in a briefing on Tuesday, blaming a resurgent pandemic and Putin. “This – when we talk about the gas prices right now, this is indeed Putin’s gas hike. This is what we have seen in the most recent months of what we’ve seen at the gas pump. And so, that is a fact,” she said.

The Russian president addressed attempts by Biden and other Western leaders to blame him and Moscow for the inflation, food and fuel crunch facing the US and its European allies. “The truth is that the current problems that millions of people in the West face are the result of many actions by the ruling elites of their states, their mistakes, myopia and ambitions. These elites are not thinking about how to improve the lives of their citizens. They are obsessed with their own selfish interests and surplus profits,” Putin said in a briefing back in March.

June 4, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Grain prices go down after Putin’s pledge

Samizdat | June 4, 2022

Global grain prices have fallen to April levels following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s promise to ensure the safe export of Ukrainian grain through Black Sea ports controlled by Russia.

Wheat was trading at $10.4 per bushel (27.2kg) on Friday, data from the Chicago Board of Trade shows. That was its lowest price since April 7, when it was quoted at $10.2 per bushel, and a 10% drop from its peak price in mid-May.

Prices of corn for animal fodder were also down this week, falling to $7.27 per bushel.

Grain prices rose last month on fears that Russia’s ongoing military operation would prevent Ukraine’s grain exports from reaching buyers. Western countries accused Russia of preventing exports, but Moscow has repeatedly stated that it is not to blame and that the ships carrying Ukrainian grain are unable to leave ports due to mines placed in the area by Kiev’s forces. Putin on Friday once again said that Russia is in no way responsible for holding up shipments and promised to assist in the ships’ passage.

“As for the export of Ukrainian grain, we do not interfere with this… It was not we who mined the passages to the ports. Ukraine mined them. I have already told all of our colleagues many times: [Ukraine] should clear the mines and allow the ships with grain leave the ports. We guarantee peaceful passage without any problems,” Putin said during an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel. He also noted that there are several other ways to export grain, including via the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol, which are under Russia’s control, or via the Danube River, through Hungary, Poland or Belarus.

Fears over the fate of Ukrainian grain have led to warnings of food insecurity and hunger in the past weeks, especially in poorer nations. According to Coldiretti, Italy’s association representing agricultural producers, Ukrainian ships must be allowed to move from ports as soon as possible, especially as the country’s warehouses will soon need to accommodate the new harvest.

“The departure of ships from the ports of the Black Sea means the emptying of Ukrainian warehouses where over 20 million tons of grain including wheat, barley and corn destined for exports are stored… The [ship] blockade raises risks of riots and famine,” Coldiretti said in a statement published on its website on Friday.

Ukraine ranks sixth among the world’s wheat exporters. Together, Russia and Ukraine supply nearly 30% of the wheat exported globally. According to Coldiretti, countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh and Iran buy more than 60% of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine, while Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and Pakistan are also heavily dependent on supplies from the two countries.

June 4, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Referendum on Joining Russia Not On Current Agenda of Kherson Region – Authorities

Samizdat – 04.06.2022

SIMFEROPOL – A referendum on joining Russia is currently not on the agenda of the Kherson region, which plans to focus on returning to normal life first, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the regional military-civil administration, told Sputnik.

“Today, the priority for us is the stabilization of life in the Kherson region. Issues of paying pensions, social benefits, and launching the region’s economy are being resolved. The referendum is not on the agenda today,” Stremousov said.

He added that a referendum is possible after the situation in the region fully stabilizes.

On Tuesday, Stremousov told Sputnik that the Kherson region plans to hold a referendum on joining Russia, and it is estimated that at least 60-70 percent of the local population will agree to become a part of Russia.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, after the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations.

Moscow has said that the aim of its special operation is to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine. In response to Russia’s operation, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine.

The Russian military has already taken control of the Kherson Region in the south of the country and part of the Zaporizhzhia Region. Military-civilian administrations have been formed in the regions, broadcasting of Russian TV channels and radio stations was launched, and trade ties with Crimea are being restored.

June 4, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , | Leave a comment

Global food crisis a result of policy mistakes by US and EU: Putin aide

Samizdat | June 3, 2022

The looming global food crisis that could result from skyrocketing food prices was enabled by a series of policy mistakes by Washington and Brussels, Maksim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told RT.

The conflict in Ukraine alone could not have caused the crisis on such a massive scale, Oreshkin said.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s international food price index shows that between April 2020 and April 2022, global food prices rose by more than 60%. The increase occurred for the most part before February 2022, when Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine.

In the four years from 2016 to 2020, the index grew by less than 7 points, but it increased by a whopping 27 points, from 98.1 to 125.7, in 2020-21. After the second year of the pandemic, the index stood at 141.1.

Since Russia’s military operation began, the index has risen by a further 17 points.

“Swings like that, with such huge increases in prices, are not happening due to one reason. It’s always a combination of a number of reasons which is leading to such a result,” Oreshkin, Russia’s economic development minister from 2016 to 2020, said.

He points to America’s overreaction to the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the first major factors that triggered the food price hikes. Since February 2020, the US “increased the money supply by almost 40%,” he said, adding that the $6 trillion the US printed to support its economy ended up flooding global markets, and led to the rise in food, commodity and energy prices.

Europe’s over-reliance on renewable energy, which drew resources away from food production, and on short-term gas contracts that led to gas price hikes in late 2021, are also significant factors, according to Oreshkin.

In early May, German Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Svenja Schulze said that the focus of some nations on green energy contributed to the food shortage. According to Schulze, up to 4% of biofuel in Germany is made from food and animal feed. “It needs to be reduced to zero, and not just in Germany but potentially internationally,” she told Bild at the time.

Oreshkin said these factors also led to a decrease in fertilizer production, which in turn hit harvests and drove up food prices. The waves of sanctions unleashed by the US and its allies on Moscow after the start of the military operation in Ukraine significantly exacerbated the crisis.

“It’s about a lot of sanctions imposed on the different fertilizer producers in Belarus, in Russia, it’s sanctions on ships, it’s sanctions on payments which halted trade,” he said, adding that Russia and Belarus both want “to export more food … more fertilizers,” but the “sanctions are blocking access to the global market and, of course, limit supply.”

According to Oreshkin, the 20 million tons of wheat supposedly blocked in Ukraine, which has become a hot topic among Western politicians and media, account for 2.5% of global wheat production. He also stated that Russia is prepared to partially substitute potential losses of Ukrainian wheat by exporting 13 million more tons this year than in 2021.

He also pointed to global food inequality as a root cause. “In reality, there is enough food on this planet,” but developed nations such as the US are simply consuming much more food than the others, he said, adding that people in the US consume on average “more than 50% calories per day more” than people around the world.

“They’re printing the money, they’re taking all the food, and of course they are taking the food from those who cannot afford it.”

He added: “if countries like the United States consume less, there will be enough food for everyone.”

June 3, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Leave a comment

Political West ‘shocked’ by polls indicating most of world population likes Russia

By Drago Bosnic | June 3, 2022

Russophobia is defined as a racist or supremacist attitude towards Russia, its people, culture, etc. It most certainly isn’t a new phenomenon and it has intermittently been spiking or subsiding at various historical stages. This is especially true for the political West and their client states, particularly those with predominantly (neo)liberal views. In the last several months, especially since the start of Russia’s special military operation, this hatred has reached levels which can only be described as borderline mass psychoneurosis. Oftentimes, it’s so extreme, that it should be treated by highly trained medical specialists such as psychiatrists and studied thoroughly by clinical psychologists.

There were some claims that anti-Russian sanctions and generally anti-Russian actions of various Western institutions, governments and supranational organizations were not aimed against the Russian people, Russian culture, language, etc. And yet, this is precisely what has been happening. Sanctions imposed on Russia were designed specifically to target and bring down the Russian economy. And it’s not even a conspiracy theory, as most Western leaders openly stated this was their primary goal.

This attempt didn’t only fail miserably, but it even backfired, sending Western markets into a frenzy of high inflation and economic stagnation (or even recession), otherwise known as stagflation, a dreadful and volatile mix for anyone’s economy. And yet, the political West didn’t only fail to address the mounting issues resulting from their own actions, but they also decided to capitalize on these exact problems to push for more Russophobia by blaming Russia for literally everything.

That’s precisely how we got the mythical “Putin’s price hike” in the US, which started over a full year before Russia’s special military operation. However, even in the atmosphere of raging, media-incited hatred, people affected by the so-called “Putin’s price hike” are well aware this has nothing to do with Russia’s president. And yet, the hatred not only needs to be kept alive, but also fanned up to new extremes.

The latest trend is to blame Russia for global food shortages, including the shortages of baby food in the US. Some Western officials went as far as to blame Russia for the widespread man-made famine which has been ravaging Yemen for the last 7 years. One problem with this, however, is the involvement of the political West and its regional allies and clients, which have been keeping Yemen in a state of perpetual siege, blocking food imports and bombing the country daily. The sheer amount of hypocrisy and mental gymnastics necessary for one to blame Russia for the war crimes committed by the political West requires a thorough analysis in itself. Some of it medical.

When it comes to global food shortages, they can only be explained as entirely man-made. Russia expects a record harvest this year, as do many other countries. So, how come there is a shortage announced months in advance? Well, we should ask those announcing it. The statements about coming food shortages also drive up the prices, but the actual reason behind it can only be explained by Western sanctions which are preventing normal trade between Russia and other countries which need Russian food. The political West is also using this to capitalize on Russophobia, by blaming the Russian counteroffensive in Ukraine as the reason behind food shortages. A portion of the accusations is heavily focused on the nonexistent Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports. But the crews of ships stranded in Odessa, Nikolayev and Kherson tell a very different story. It was the Kiev regime’s placement of thousands of sea mines that makes sea transit from Ukraine virtually impossible.

But, it’s all Russia’s fault in the minds of clinical Russophobes. And no matter how much evidence is presented to disprove this false narrative (just one of many), they will find ways to spin it to their advantage. Still, the vast majority of the world simply doesn’t believe any of it. And the fact that the world doesn’t fall for Russophobia and anti-Russian propaganda is what truly “shocks” the political West. The ever-belligerent, (neo)colonialist block cannot comprehend why the world doesn’t share their views. Well, maybe because much, if not most of that same world has suffered tremendously under the jackboot of global (neo)liberalism for decades, centuries even. The most recent polls confirm this. The Guardian published the “shocking” statistics on 30 May.

“The sharp polarisation between mainly Western liberal democracies and the rest of the world in perceptions of Russia has been laid bare in an annual global poll of attitudes towards democracy. The annual Democracy Perception Index covers 52 countries in Asia, Latin America, the US and Europe. Majorities in Greece, Kenya, Turkey, China, Israel, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam, Algeria, the Philippines, Hungary, Mexico, Thailand, Morocco, Malaysia, Peru, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Colombia thought economic ties with Russia should not be cut. Also, positive views of Russia have been retained in China, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. By contrast, among the 31 countries that favoured cutting ties, 20 were in Europe. The countries with a widely held most negative view of Russia included Poland (87%), Ukraine (80%), Portugal (79%), Italy (65%), UK (65%), Sweden (77%), US (62%) and Germany (62%). Thus, negative views of Russia are largely confined to Europe and other liberal democracies,” the report says.

Statistics such as this should always be taken with a grain of salt, as they could easily be rigged to further an agenda, if not through data manipulation, then through ambiguous questions which result in (intentionally) confusing or unclear answers. And yet, the results must be highly disappointing, with the massive trillion-dollar propaganda machine exposed as largely impotent outside of the political West. Long gone are the days when entire nations, such as Serbs, Iraqis or Syrians, among many others, could be demonized and then killed en masse with impunity.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

June 3, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | Leave a comment

Brazilian front-runner slams US billions for Ukraine

Samizdat | June 2, 2022

Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called out US President Joe Biden in two campaign speeches this week, citing the $40 billion in military aid Washington has pledged to Ukraine. Lula is polling far ahead of the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, in the upcoming presidential election.

“Biden, who has never made a speech to give $1 to those who are starving in Africa, announces $40 billion to help Ukraine buy weapons,” Lula said on Wednesday in Porto Alegre. “This can’t be!” he added.

The 76-year-old is the candidate of the leftist Party of Workers (PT), and currently the favorite to win the presidential election in October.

Speaking in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, Lula brought up the $40 billion in another context. How is it possible, he asked, that the world’s supposedly strongest economy is reduced to scouring the globe for baby formula – amid shortages in the US – even as Biden pledges billions in weapons sales to Kiev?

About half of the $40 billion package is directly earmarked for US weapons headed to Ukraine, while the rest would fund the government in Kiev, replenish the depleted Pentagon stockpiles, and fund US military deployments in Europe. Biden signed it on May 21 after both chambers of Congress passed it with token Republican opposition. The physical bill was flown to Asia, where Biden was visiting at the time, so he could formally attach his signature.

Lula has previously criticized Biden over the conflict in Ukraine, saying the US leader could have prevented it, but instead chose to give a blank check to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The United States has a lot of political clout. And Biden could have avoided [the conflict], not incited it,” Lula said in an interview with Time magazine in early May.

“And now we are going to have to foot the bill because of the war on Ukraine. Argentina, Bolivia will also have to pay. You’re not punishing [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. You’re punishing many different countries, you’re punishing mankind,” he added.

Lula was president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010 and remains one of the most popular Brazilian politicians ever. He was convicted on corruption charges and jailed in 2018 – during the interim presidency that had impeached his successor, Dilma Rousseff – but the conviction was annulled in 2021. The Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that Lula did not receive a fair trial, and cleared him to run for office again.

The most recent polls by Datafolha show Lula with a 21-point lead over Bolsonaro.

June 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The REAL agenda behind the created food crisis

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | June 1, 2022

We’re in the early stages of a food crisis.

The press has been predicting this for years, but  up until now it always appeared to be nothing more than fearmongering, designed to worry or distract people, but the signs are there that this time, to quote Joe Biden, it “is going to be real”.

Nobody knows how bad it could get, except the people who are creating it.

Because the evidence is pretty clear, it is being deliberately & cold-bloodedly created. We’ve been documenting it for months.

We have Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine driving up the price of staple foods, wheat and sunflower oil, as well as fertiliser.

We have the sudden “bird flu outbreak” driving up the price of poultry and eggs.

The soaring price of oil is driving up the cost of food distribution.

The inflation caused by huge influxes of fiat currency means families are spending more money on less food.

And as all this is happening, the US and UK (and maybe others, we don’t know) are literally paying farmers not to farm.

It’s pretty clear this is The Great Reset: Food Edition. The lockdown melody with slightly different lyrics. A process of breaking down the structures already in place so we can “build back better” with a more controlled and more corporatised food system

Just as the Covid “pandemic” was said to highlight “weaknesses in the multilateral system”, so this food crisis will show that our “unstable food systems are in need of reform” and we need to ensure our “food security”…or a thousand variations on that theme.

That’s not supposition. They already started, over a year ago.

The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Developments published a paper in February 2021 titled:

Dismantling and rebuilding the food system after COVID-19: Ten principles for redistribution and regeneration

In an interview from July last year, Ruth Richardson the Executive Director of the NGO Global Alliance for the Future of Food literally said:

Our Dominant Food System Needs to Be Dismantled and Rebuilt”

Later, in September 2021, the UN convened the first-ever “Food Systems Summit”, whose mission statement included the line:

Rebuilding the food systems of the world will also enable us to answer the UN Secretary-General’s call to “build back better” from COVID-19.

Writing in the Guardian two weeks ago, George Monbiot, weathervane for every deep state agenda, states with his trademark lack of subtlety:

The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same… The system has to change.

But what does “change” and “rebuilt” actually mean in this context?

Well, that’s no mystery, they’ve been talking it up for years.

Almost all of these are stories from just the past month or so, many of them talking points at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Conference.

As is almost always the case, the problem to which they’re currently “reacting” already has a series of pre-ordained solutions.

Just as we saw lockdowns break the economy to pieces whilst the billionaire class land record profits whilst corporate megaliths expanded their monopolies, so too will any proposed food security policies end up benefiting the already mega-rich or installing infrastructure for corporate control.

They just announced the building of the largest “cultured meat factory” in the world. Fake meat, of course, can’t be raised at home and is subject to patented processes of creation. Genetically edited or modified plants and animals are likewise subject to patents.

Supranational companies, with profits larger than the budget of some nations, are developing carbon footprint tracker apps which reward people for making the “right decisions”. That could easily be applied to food.

Bill Gates has quietly become the largest owner of agricultural land in the United States. Land on which he can grow new Frankencrops, or which the US government will pay him not to use.

The play is clear: Right now they’re getting ready to tear all our old food systems down, with the stated aim of building them back better.

But better for them, not us.

June 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Leave a comment

Biden pitches advantages for US stemming from EU’s Russian oil embargo

Samizdat | June 2, 2022

The US may try to buy some cheap Russian oil after the European oil embargo drives the price down, US President Joe Biden indicated on Wednesday. He aired the idea while talking to media about his administration’s plan to deal with the shortage of baby formula and surging prices for basic commodities such as food and gas.

Biden took credit for keeping US gas prices, currently at all-time highs, from going even higher. He blamed Russia and its military campaign in Ukraine for driving food and energy prices up and said his administration was working hard to deal with the problems.

“The issue that is occurring now is you have Europe deciding that they’re going to further curtail the purchase of Russian oil,” he said, referring to the sixth package of anti-Russian sanctions.

EU members reached an agreement several days ago partially banning imports of Russian crude. The Europeans want to cut oil trade with Russia by 90% by the end of the year. But Russia’s loss of European market may be an opportunity for the US, Biden implied.

“There’s a whole lot of consideration going on about what can be done to maybe even purchase the oil but at a limited price so that it has to be sold,” he said. “There’d be an overwhelming need for the Russians to sell it, and it would be sold at a significantly lower price than the market is generating now.”

The president warned that his administration would not be able to “click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline” in the near term and that the same was true for food.

Moscow downplayed Biden’s remarks, saying the global oil market would rebalance itself despite EU restrictions.

“Certainly, Russia will not sell anything without a profit. The demand may fall in one place and rise elsewhere. The supply chains reorient as parties seek the best conditions for trade,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

Inflation is currently the biggest concern for many American voters. Political experts predict that Biden’s Democratic Party may be wiped out at the ballot box come November, unless his administration manages to rein in the surging prices soon.

The White House has repeatedly pointed the finger at Russia, and personally President Vladimir Putin, for the ongoing problems. It even coined the term “Putin’s price hike” to explain why American working families find it harder to make both ends meet with every passing month.

However, food and energy prices were going up globally long before Russia attacked Ukraine in February. The disruption of supply chains amid the Covid-19 pandemic was a major factor. Moscow said Washington’s blame game ignored many causes of the problems, including some that resulted from the US campaign to punish Russia with economic sanctions.

The US banned all imports of Russian oil, liquified natural gas and coal in March.

June 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

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