[UNZ] Despite being found guilty late last year for her role in sex crimes against minors, Ghislaine Maxwell, the “madam” and chief accomplice of the intelligence-linked pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, may soon walk free. A juror in the case, Scotty David, subsequently took credit for the jury’s decision to find Ghislaine Maxwell guilty and “inadvertently” revealed that he had incorrectly answered a pre-trial questionnaire. As a result, the possibility of a mistrial, and Ghislaine walking free, now looms large.
David has some interesting connections, as he currently works for the Carlyle Group – the global investment firm whose ties to the bin Laden family during the early 2000s have come under scrutiny. Carlyle’s executives often have ties to intelligence, with one example being its former chairman and then chairman emeritus, Frank Carlucci, who had been deputy director of the CIA and, later, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense. Carlyle’s current co-founder and co-chairman David Rubenstein, as noted in this article from Free Press Report, served on the board of the influential Trilateral Commission during the same time as Jeffrey Epstein, while his ex-wife Alice Rogoff (divorced in 2017) had a very close working relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, including with her now defunct “charity” the TerraMar Project. Given the fact that there are known ties between David’s employer and Ghislaine Maxwell, why has this potential conflict of interest gone unmentioned by mainstream media?
Not only that, but – according to a family member of one of the women who testified against Maxwell during her trial – David was connected with the journalist who would publish the now infamous, post-verdict report via Vicky Ward. Ward has been denounced by Epstein victims and others close to the case for having had a past “chummy” relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell she declined to disclose for years and for subsequently telling Ghislaine that Epstein victim Maria Farmer had been the person who had first reported Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI back in 1996. Farmer later claims that Ward’s lack of journalistic integrity, after promising to keep Farmer’s identity secret, had put her life in danger and forced her into hiding.
[Babylon Bee] Memo from two weeks from now. Note Twitter has ACTUALLY suspended the Bee for accurately noting Biden Admin Rachel Levine is RICK
KABUL—Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Naeem Warda has finally been banned from Twitter this week after carelessly sharing a satirical headline from The Babylon Bee.
"Wallahi, I just thought the joke was funny," said the bloodthirsty terrorist PR rep. "A man who thinks he's a woman? Whoever heard of such a thing? Those Babylon Bee people are so fun and crazy, even though they're infidels who must die a painful death by our hands."
Twitter has said they will not unlock Warda's account until he deletes the hateful, bigoted material. Once he does, he will be able to join President Putin, Antifa terrorists, the CCP, and violent pornographers in using Twitter freely.
"Twitter has a clear policy against expressing any opinion that runs contrary to our preferred gender ideology," said one Twitter spokesperson as a group of activists stood menacingly behind him with billy clubs. "Also, the trans activists said they'd burn our building down if we don't comply with their agenda so we don't really have a choice."
Warda has apologized for the irresponsible tweet and has promised to stick to promoting the slavery and subjugation of women according to Sharia Law in the future.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/23/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban/IEA
[WSJ] Woke Democrats are less welcome than Trumpian populists in many countries.
Key graphs:
Mr. Putin’s claim that an overpowerful West seeks to use its economic and institutional leverage to impose a radical worldview on the rest of the planet strikes Western liberals as self-serving propaganda, but his arguments resonate more widely than most liberals understand. The Trump administration’s unilateral imposition of tough sanctions against Iran heightened international awareness of how much power the global economic system gives the U.S. But woke Democrats using economic sanctions to impose their views on climate, gender and other issues are even less welcome in many countries than Trumpian populists.
To those who share this perspective, an unpredictable America at the helm of the liberal West is a greater threat to the independence of many postcolonial states than Russian or even Chinese ambition could ever be. Chinese propaganda about the need for alternative economic arrangements that limit Western power are significantly more influential now than they were a month ago.
None of this means that the West is wrong to oppose Mr. Putin’s war (or, for that matter, to concern itself with climate change and the rights of sexual minorities). But the job of protecting world peace is harder and more complicated than many newly enthusiastic neo-cold-warriors have yet understood. What used to be called the Global South does not always share the priorities and perspectives of Yale Law School. Neither Donald Trump nor the woke left inspires confidence around the world, and an American political system that appears doomed to oscillate between them won’t indefinitely maintain the leadership on which America’s peace and security depend.
#2
Mead begins his article stating the West has never been closely aligned. What a joke! French and other EU countries are replacing Americans who leave Russia, the Germans won't arm the Ukrainians-except with junk weapons, the French are moving in retail outlets to replace American.
Mead couldn't be more out of touch, Just another ivory tower liberal.
#3
Neither Donald Trump nor the woke left inspires confidence around the world
He had to work his gratuitous little dig in there. So, who exactly would "the world" trust running America?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/23/2022 8:56 Comments ||
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#4
He had to work his gratuitous little dig in there. So, who exactly would "the world" trust running America?
For all his insight and cleverness Mead is still a Swampie. Has to virtue signal, show his team apparel in order to be allowed to drink in the bar.
I think the world would be very happy and much better off -- as would we all - with one of the "restraint" or "retrench" advocates in the White House...someone like Rand Paul. Perhaps DeSantis?
[Red State] In the liturgy that has been the total failure of our National Intelligence Apparatus, no character has been more prominent than James Clapper. The former Director of National Intelligence, and now CNN Talking-Head, has been perpetually wrong about the vast majority of his predictions or statements regarding intelligence matters, even to damaging others by his actions.
On March 5th, Clapper was on CNN performing his regular duties as a "far-left conspiracy theorist," suggesting that Vladimir Putin was no better than Adolf Hitler.
"It’s always a mystery to us. And all we really have to go on, at least for me, is his behavior and statements, his demeanor, and what he is causing to happen. I think that really gives a real insight into his character and for me, he’s a 21st Century Hitler."
Yet, CNN host Jim Acosta didn’t challenge Clapper on his statements, or on the fact that a great deal of the aggression of Putin was seen under Clapper’s time in intelligence. Instead, Acosta played stooge to Clapper’s ignoring the fact that Putin has always been the person he has been, and that a large part of his aggression took place during the Obama Administration.
Clapper’s statements, limited in context only to the current conflict in Ukraine, attempt to circumvent Putin’s history in the region. In 1999, Putin ordered his forces into Chechnya to restore Russian control of the then-independent region. In 2008, Putin’s forces entered the South Ossetia portion of Georgia, taking and holding control. In 2009, incursions into Crimea in Ukraine had begun, leading to the region’s annexation in 2014. Clapper’s statements nearly echo the statements made by Western leaders about Adolf Hitler circa 1941.
The point is that Clapper has been in the room for the discussion for more than 20 years about Putin’s brutalities. The actions taken within Chechnya alone read like a liturgy of human rights violations. Where was Clapper during the dozens of incursions into Ukraine during the Obama Administration? Where was he when they took South Ossetia? Where was the talk of him being as bad as Adolf Hitler then?
#4
When former is put in front of anyones name they should have their clearance pulled.
Posted by: Chris ||
03/23/2022 10:42 Comments ||
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#5
Clearance = access
access = value as a source
source = credibility
credibility = useful in advancing an agenda
usefulness = income
income = willingness to read the script
script reading = comfort and acceptance in DC
QED
[Zman] Boo! trolls...
One of the transcendent features of left-wing people, regardless of time and place, is their complete lack of self-awareness. The great blind spot for all left-wing people is the reflection in the mirror. They are incapable of seeing themselves other than as the hero in a great struggle. This story out of Canada about the correlation between Covid-loving and Putin-hating is a great example. The Left thinks it confirms their righteous hatred of their enemy, but it merely confirms their lack of self-awareness.
According to the story, "Unvaccinated Canadians are about 12 times more likely than those who received three doses to believe Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, according to a new survey by national polling firm EKOS." Now, polling is a dodgy business, so this could be a fake poll designed to titillate the far-left. The fact that such a scenario is possible, however, is more proof of the general thesis about the far-left’s lack of self-awareness.
[Globe] Piotr Wiarski has never sold as many M16 rifles, Glock pistols, pump-action shotguns and other firearms of all kinds as quickly as he has since Russia invaded Ukraine last month. And don’t even ask him about bullets. They’re sold out, too.
Mr. Wiarski owns Gruby Kaliber, one of the main gun shops in Przemysl, a small city in eastern Poland that is about 10 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. His sales have doubled in the past week, and he’s struggling to keep up with orders.
While he welcomes the boost in revenue, he’s troubled by the number of weapons circulating in this normally tranquil border town. "They are all afraid," he said of his growing customer base. "I think they feel better when they’ve got something in the house. But I’m not sure it is better."
It’s not only Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the fear that violence could spill into Poland that has people around Przemysl concerned. There’s also unease over the hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring across the border.
#1
Firearms permits are difficult to obtain in Poland. The application process can take up to 6 months and include classes, heavy fees, certification, and range qualification. There is reportedly one firearm for every 100 Poles.
#4
At the time, gun ownership was hovering around an estimated nearly 400 million guns in the United States, with an estimated 3% of American adults owning nearly 50% of the countries firearms.
[Washington Examiner] WARSAW — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s massive military offensive in Ukraine has prompted European officials on the edge of the war zone to contemplate the prospect that he might use nuclear weapons to achieve his objectives — or even consider an attack on a NATO-allied state.
"Nuclear war is impossible to be won. ... This is the rule of warfare, that, actually, it’s the last resort," a senior European official said. "But, unfortunately, Russians actually somehow behave too lightly about it. And that causes the biggest trouble for us."
#2
Speaking of WMD, if those were biowarfare labs, how come they didn't release their holdings? With your back against the wall, its when you let that kind of stuff loose.
#3
The risk is that Biden will push Putin into a corner where he sees no other option.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/23/2022 12:15 Comments ||
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#4
Russia is not calling this a war but a military operation
they are doing nothing different than what the US has been doing for decades, except they are actually responding to a number of broken treaties, the murder of Russians in Donbas and Lugansk that has been going on for 8 FUCKING YEARS, bioweapons labs, theft of their property, loans that have been defaulted on, and nukes being placed on their border
remember "no boots on the ground" in Syria? Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan? WMDs in Iraq? horrible dictators in Libya? extremism and ISIS in Yemen? etc etc etc etc
when was the last time the US has fought an actual declared war and when was the last time it fought a war that was actually justified?
i'm not anti-America or pro-Putin, I am anti all of this ^^^^^
f|||ck NATO and all of it's hypocritical unicornsh1t. NATO has killed millions of civilians in recent years without a single peep from the usual scumbags at the UN. NATO is the one who gave Ukraine cluster bombs that they have been dropping on Russians since 2014, which is a war crime in itself. NATO is the one who broke it's treaties. so as far as i'm concerned, NATO has no moral, legal, logical, or historical standing and can go get f||cked along with it's gl0b0h0m0 new world order great reset build back better inbred degenerate pefo handlers
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. By Oleg Airapetov
[Regnum] In the northwestern direction, the Red Army has already begun to operate. On November 17, 1918, nine months after the German offensive began after the breakdown of negotiations in Brest, the troops of the Northern Front received an order to advance with the aim of capturing Pskov and Narva. A crisis situation has also developed in Novorossiya. The hetman's troops were able to drive Makhno out of Yekaterinoslav, but then they acted without much success. Makhno himself tried to expand the territory he controlled, for the first time agreeing to an agreement with the Bolsheviks.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/23/2022 9:44 Comments ||
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#6
Also, I recommend Solzhenytzen's Red Wheel. The earliest volume is "August 1914". You can read a sample on Amazon:
They left the village in the clear dawn light. As the sun rose the mountains were dazzling white with dark blue hollows, every indentation could be seen, and they looked so close that a stranger might have thought them a two hours’ drive away.
The Caucasus loomed huge and elemental in a world of small man-made things. If all the people who had ever lived had opened their arms as wide as they could to carry all that they had ever made, or ever thought of making, and piled it up in swelling heaps, they could not have raised such an unbelievable mountain range.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (2014-08-18T23:58:59.000). August 1914: A Novel: The Red Wheel I . Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
Excerpt:
[SOF News] Western SOF? Some conjecture that Western special operations forces are actively engaged in supporting Ukrainian forces in the conflict is now taking place. Certainly they are 'in touch' with their Ukrainian SOF counterparts . . . but to what degree? The Brits could be leaning forward in this area.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Borislav Agadzhanov
[Regnum] On August 19, 1991, the federal government finally remembered the need to restore elementary order in a number of national republics. In particular, it was necessary to fulfill the already very old decrees of the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev"On the prohibition of the creation of armed formations not provided for by the legislation of the USSR, and the seizure of weapons in cases of illegal storage" of July 25, 1990 and "On some acts on defense issues adopted in the union republics" of December 1, 1990.
[UNZ] Bio– Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. His analysis and commentary can be found at his blog, https://sonar21.com/
#2
Larry C. Johnson– Doug is great analyst but I disagree with him—I don’t think there is anyone in the Biden Administration that is smart enough to think and plan in those strategic terms.
#4
Is this true? If so then why aren't we hearing any of this analysis from our media? Are they all just shills for the Ukrainian Army?
"The scale and scope of the Russian attack is remarkable. They captured territory in three weeks that is larger than the land mass of the United Kingdom. They then proceeded to carry out targeted attacks on key cities and military installations. We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication.
"The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North."
"I would note that the U.S. had a tougher time capturing this much territory in Iraq in 2003 while fighting against a far inferior, less capable military force. If anything, this Russian operation should scare the hell out of U.S. military and political leaders.
The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr. NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.” Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday. Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday. It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties.
"Not only is Russia striking and destroying bases used by NATO regularly since 2015, but there was no air raid warning and there was no shutdown of the attacking missiles."
#6
Unz Report us definitely full of anti-semitransparent, but it doesn't matter where this analysis appeared. What Larry Johnson is saying is correct. I agree totally with the above statements, also with this political and economic assessment of Biden's strategy:
There is an air of desperation in Washington. Besides trying ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line. I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle.
I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West. If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and U.S. economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has nowmade it very likely that the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history.
#10
Ukrainian minister says their military is in dire straits, will run out of weapons within two weeks. British commander says the Ukrainian troops are using up a week's worth of weapons every 20 hours.
Posted by: Titus Theath2963 ||
03/23/2022 7:39 Comments ||
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#11
^^ Movie quote:
"...pretty sophisticated for a bunch of half-assed mountain boys."
#18
one month of Russian invasion and the only big city the Russians have is Mariupol
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/23/2022 11:18 Comments ||
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#19
—I don’t think there is anyone in the Biden Administration that is smart enough to think and plan in those strategic terms.
In addition, this administration is inept, has either bad policies or none. As long as they are spending all their time covering up past crimes and corruption and blinded by their empty "woke" ideology, little will change unless there is a red-wave tsunami in the voting booth in 2022 and 2024.
Oh dear. Point of information, my dear Omaing Stalag1261: the country name is USA or America. When used as a descriptor or adjective, the proper form is always American., to form an American conservative — grammatically comparable to a Russian conservative, though differing dramatically in key philosophical and behavioral characteristics. No educated speaker of English would make that mistake. It weakens your insult dreadfully when you write so — you really don’t intend your readers to smile with pity that you were dragged off to the troll farm before completing the basic education, when they should be shaking in impotent fury.
#21
I don't know if he's an American Conservative or not but Niall Ferguson is right of center and he basically agrees with Larry Johnson's analysis. The Biden administration seems to be making a huge bet on an extremely unlikely scenario. That's definitely not conservative or wise.
#22
You mean the Biden administration that is ensuring the program to create a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran sends billions to Russia at the same time?
They're not betting against Russia.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/23/2022 13:13 Comments ||
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#23
No the bet seems to be that they can extend the war for a long time, bleed Russia dry and provoke a second Russian Revolution. Seems really far fetched to put it mildly. I agree with Ferguson and the other western scholars who say this strategy is half-baked.
#24
"the U.S. had a tougher time capturing this much territory in Iraq in 2003 while fighting against a far inferior, less capable military force."
This made me laugh. Comparing a brutal attack into a neighbor with a closely watched don't hurt civilians attack on the far side of the globe is hardly comparing apples to apples.
"There is an air of desperation in Washington. Besides trying ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line."
Yes, this is desperation. The Indians tell Biden to pound sand and the Saudis don't even pick up the phone when Biden calls.
"I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle."
I have no idea where they got the idea that all of Russia is just burning to rise up and replace Putin with... who? Kasparov the Jew? Browder the American wannabe oligarch? Who the hell shapes their understanding of Russia -- Nikole Hannah-Jones?
#27
no idea where they got the idea that all of Russia is just burning to rise up and replace Putin with... who? Kasparov the Jew? Browder the American wannabe oligarch? Who the hell shapes their understanding of Russia -- Nikole Hannah-Jones?
Seriously, they probably listened to fairy tales told them by Victoria Nuland the Coup-Mistress and Ambassador Michael "Fuck-town" McFaul:
#28
This is the caliber of Biden's diplomatic and Russia experts. Michael McFahk, so incompetent that half of Russian twitter trolled him when he used the Russian word for 'fuck' as part of his own imbecilic made-up slangy pseudo-contraction for Yekaterinburg.
Mark Ames recounts:
Earlier this month, on the eve of Independence Day, McFaul cheerfully tweeted out to his 26,000+ followers: “I’ll be in Yekaterinburg for the InnoProm Exhibition.”
Only problem is, Amb. McFaul didn’t write “Yekaterinburg.” For some reason, McFaul got the brilliant idea of replacing “Yekaterinburg” with “Yoburg” (Ёбург), meaning “Fuckberg,” or “Fuckville.”
He thought he was being colloquial and in-the-know. Instead, he was being an idiot. So the tweet from the US Ambassador to Russia cheerfully reads: “Hey I’m heading to Fuckberg to the InnoProm Exhibition”
And with that tweet, McFaul launched a New Cold War — or as Newsru.com reported in an article headlined “Ambassador McFaul Forced To Apologize Over ‘Fuckberg’”:
“The American Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, once again had to apologize for his use of Russian language, which he’s been having difficulty with lately.”
And then came the tweets.
One Russian tweeter @engineee replied earnestly:
“Michael, ‘YoBurg’ is an offensive lowlife’s word, you shouldn’t use it.”
Self-hating Russian @microzmija tweeted:
“Michael, you called that Urals shithole Sverdlovsk right!” [Sverdlovsk was the Communist-era name of Yekaterinburg.]
No doubt the most poignant tweet of all, the one favored by Newsru.com and others, came from some Russian D&D dweeb @dmitry_denb who uses an Alexander Nevsky avatar. He replied simply:
“You’re the fuckberg, MacFahk!”
Finally, @Alexey_Kovalev tweeted to McFaul in English:
“I love that US Ambassador to Russia @McFaul is referring to Yekaterinburg as Ёбург, colloquial name with horny overtones (lit. Fuckville).”
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] 1. Mariupol. Street fighting continues. According to DPR estimates, out of 14,500 thousand personnel at the time of the formation of the boiler, about half remained in combat-ready condition in Mariupol. The rest were killed, wounded, missing, captured or infiltrated into the Zaporozhye region.
2. Marinka. Continues assault on the village. The troops are slowly advancing, but there is still a lot of work to be done before the complete clearing of this fortified area.
3. Ugledar. The troops are approaching Velyka Novoselka from the south, and also pushed through the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and advanced towards Novomikhailovka. Carbon has not yet been taken.
4. Avdievka. No significant changes. The counterattacking units of the 25th Brigade were knocked out of Verkhnetoretsky. There are fights in the Novoselka-2 area.
5. LPR. No changes in Lisichansk, Severodonetsk and Popasna. Units from Chechnya have been deployed to the front to take part in the cleansing of settlements.
6. Izyum. Fighting continues, but it's too early to talk about a turning point. At the same time, attacks on the Slavyansko-Kramatorsk agglomeration intensified, as well as strikes on the railway junction in Pavlograd and objects in Lozovaya.
7. Kharkov. No significant changes. Fighting north and east of the city. The main battles, as before, are going somewhere on the outskirts
8. Kyiv. No big changes. Despite the "counteroffensive," today Ukraine admitted that the RF Armed Forces control Bucha, Gostomel and part of Irpin. And the main task is to keep Irpen. They also sucked out of the finger “I will win in Makarov” by hanging the Ukrainian flag there, as a couple of weeks ago in the “taken Bucha.” At the same time, there is no video that would confirm the full control of the RF Armed Forces over Makarov. To the west of Kyiv, medium-intensity fighting continued northeast of Brovar. Chernigov without changes.
9. Nikolaev-Odessa. New serious blows to the city. The port infrastructure is seriously damaged. Several objects and concentrations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed. There are no active offensive actions. In the Odessa area, according to a number of reports, the Admiral Makarov frigate destroyed the Ukrainian ship Neteshyn, which laid mines.
10. Zaporozhye. The direction of Kamensky-Orekhov-Gulyaipol is getting stronger. There is a regrouping of forces. But the offensive is unlikely to begin before the cleansing of Mariupol. Nikopol - no change.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Online banking will go down, the NHS will be crippled and petrol pumps will run dry: How Putin would unleash cyber warfare on UK with 'very sophisticated' arsenal in his playbook
[YahooFinance] Farmers worldwide are feeling the sting of sanctions, as the Ukraine War has sent fertilizer prices soaring to new all-time highs, prompting concerns over a global food shortage.
Fertilizer prices last week were nearly 10% higher than the week before according to Green Markets North America Fertilizer Price Index, the highest price point ever recorded. Prices are now 40% higher than a month ago, before the invasion of Ukraine.
The surge in fertilizer prices reveals how dependent many of the world's farms are on Russian exports. Countries already afflicted by food insecurity now risk further production bottlenecks and food shortages at the worst possible time.
RUSSIAN FERTILIZERS ARE EVERYWHERE
The farming industry has been hit hard by the war and the political reaction in Russia to Western sanctions. Russia was the world’s top exporter of fertilizers in 2019, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, when Russia’s trade volume in fertilizer stood at nearly $9 billion.
Russia and neighboring Belarus, which has also been hit by sanctions, are key exporters of several critical fertilizing compounds, including urea and potash, but curtailed exports of these products has caused prices to soar. Surging fertilizer prices have also been aggravated by higher costs for natural gas, a critical feedstock in producing nitrogen-based fertilizer, amid a U.S. ban of Russian oil imports and discussions in Europe to decouple from Russian energy.
International shipping companies have largely suspended their activities in Russia, bringing global trade to a standstill. And in early March, Russian officials told fertilizer producers in the country to slow their exports in retaliation to Western sanctions.
"Illinois corn, wheat and soy farmer Richard Guebert has seen the effects firsthand. His fertilizer cost was $510 a ton last year, he said. This year, it’s $1,508. He has no choice but to pay it to meet his target crop yields, he said, and while the price he is paid for his grain will rise, too, “prices will reach a point where no one can afford to purchase them.”
#8
So Farner Richard raises the price of his corn wheat and soybeans, gets more subsidies from Washington, which increases the deficit further, which crowds out other borrowing and pushed interest rates higher, which caused recession alongside high inflation. Seen that movie before.
[ZERO] U.S. companies has struggled with supply chain congestion, bottlenecks, and the inability to adequately re-stock certain items that roiled the automotive industry. As a result, new car production has been hindered as consumers panic bought used cars, sending prices sky-high.
On Feb. 9, we outlined a major inflection point for the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, a wholesale tracker of used car prices, possibly topping as peak supply chain constraints had passed and more parts would be readily available for automakers to restart and or increase output for new vehicles. At the time, we said this could reverse used car prices. However, we also noted that this inflection point might lead to false positives if supply chain congestion persisted.
More than a month has passed by since we noted the inflection point. And to possibly validate peak supply chain constraints is Goldman Sachs' Jordan Alliger, who told clients Monday that high frequency weekly supply-chain data for the week ending Mar. 14 shows signs of bottleneck relief.
As bottlenecks subside, the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index declined 3.8% in the first 15 days of March compared to the full month of February. The used car index is still up 24.1% compared to March 2021 at around 222.4. Though momentum and rate of change indicators show soaring used car price trends are drastically slowing as supply chains crunches resolve.
The Wall Street Types seem to not understand basic Southern Middle Class Family Spending logic.
There is no reason in Heaven or Hell for a Ford Truck to cost as much as $56K to 75K.
When we can purchase a rebuilt engine with a 36/36k warranty for under $4,500 installed. Or a rebuilt transmission with the same warranty for under $3,000 installed. $8K sure beats the hell out of $75K.
#2
Where is got sampled by every music group out there posturing to be anti-theman/anti-bush/anti-republican. And here we are, those kids grown up with their own kids, and they cheering it on.
[JustTheNews] Led by Rep. Darrell Issa, lawmakers send preservation letters, setting stage for major probe if GOP retakes majority in November. demand Big Tech, NYT, intel experts.
#1
That's rich.
Save the evidence.
Uhhh, there a couple guys from New York and Florida who have copies of the hard drive. Add in the FBI stooges who made copies. Even the repair shop owner made a copy.
[Western Journal] As President Joe Biden was concluding a speech at the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday, he said something that set off alarm bells among conservatives.
"You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy — not just the world economy, in the world. It occurs every three or four generations," Biden said.
"As one of the top military people said to me in a secure meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946. And since then, we’ve established a liberal world order, and that hadn’t happened in a long while. A lot of people dying, but nowhere near the chaos.
"And now is a time when things are shifting. There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it."
Naturally, when a U.S. president, particularly one who is obsessed with climate change, tells a group that "we are at an inflection point" and starts talking about "a new world order," Republicans are going to be ruffled.
#5
This is the man who couldn't even manage an orderly retreat from Afghanistan. You can say he is an old fool having delusions of grandeur but his delusion is dangerous because he's POTUS. Gotta wonder who is whispering all this bullcrap into his ear. Who is programming his teleprompter? Do they know what they're doing? Are they just a bunch of delusional old fools themselves? Is the leash they have on him tight enough?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/23/2022 12:24 Comments ||
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#6
"You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy"
I agree, socialism has been proven a failure globally. Time to move beyond that nonsense, time to stop USA financially supporting other nations with no strings attached. These policies were failures of the last century and we need to move on.
#3
Drop the headline into the Google search app, Muggsy Whinegum5809. Here ae a few key parqgraphs:
“The language people speak in the corridors of power,” former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter once observed, “is not economics or politics. It is history.”
In a recent academic article, I showed how true this was after both the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 and the “9/15” bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Policy makers used all kinds of historical analogies as they reacted. “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today,” President George W. Bush noted in his diary, late on the night of the attacks, to give just one example, though many other parallels were drawn in the succeeding days, from the Civil War to the Cold War.
What kind of history is informing today’s decisions in Washington as the war in Ukraine nears the conclusion of its first month? A few clues have emerged.
“American officials are divided on how much the lessons from Cold War proxy wars, like the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, can be applied to the ongoing war in Ukraine,” David Sanger reported for the New York Times on Saturday.
According to Sanger, who cannot have written his piece without high-level sources, the Biden administration “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire without inciting a broader conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary or cutting off potential paths to de-escalation … CIA officers are helping to ensure that crates of weapons are delivered into the hands of vetted Ukrainian military units, according to American officials. But as of now, Mr. Biden and his staff do not see the utility of an expansive covert effort to use the spy agency to ferry in arms as the United States did in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the 1980s.”
Reading this carefully, I conclude that the U.S. intends to keep this war going. The administration will continue to supply the Ukrainians with anti-aircraft Stingers, antitank Javelins and explosive Switchblade drones. It will keep trying to persuade other North Atlantic Treaty Organization governments to supply heavier defensive weaponry. (The latest U.S. proposal is for Turkey to provide Ukraine with the sophisticated S-400 anti-aircraft system, which Ankara purchased from Moscow just a few years ago. I expect it to go the way of the scuttled plan for Polish MiG fighters.) Washington will revert to the Afghanistan-after-1979 playbook of supplying an insurgency only if the Ukrainian government loses the conventional war.
I have evidence from other sources to corroborate this. “The only end game now,” a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it. Seeing Russia get cut off will not look like a good vector and they’ll have to re-evaluate the Sino-Russia axis. All this is to say that democracy and the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment.”
I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that “the U.K.’s No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” Again and again, I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.
#4
/\ Washington will revert to the Afghanistan-after-1979 playbook of supplying an insurgency only if the Ukrainian government loses the conventional war.
#7
The biggest mistake in my view is the west (especially Captain grabby McPoopy pants) immediately pushed Putin into a corner by calling him a war criminal and pushing for regime change.
Never find out how hard a man can fight when you give him no other choice than death.
I would have preferred an approach where you gave Putin a way to climb down gracefully. Sanctions stay in place and weapons flow into Ukraine until you leave. The moment you do the weapons stop flowing and we can talk about how to remove the sanctions. Then sneak weapons into Ukraine after the Russians go.
At this point Putin has no place to go but to go for broke and that means nukes are in play. At the beginning of this war I mentioned to not underestimate the ability of our "leaders" in the west to stumble into WWIII. I hate being right.
#8
Putin was never backed into a corner. He has plenty of buyers for his oil, tonnes of gold, no rivals to his rule and all the time in the world. He just announced Russia will demand payment in rubles. The ruble is soaring and foreign hedge funds will pour back into Russian securities tomorrow.
Just like they did 2 years after 1998, the last time the Russian market was written off for dead. 2000 was Putin's first year as president. The Russian economy soared for most of the rest of the decade, and rebuilt Russia's military during that time. Another commodities supercycle is starting. Putin and the smart money see this.
#10
So sad, that riff. From scintillating, needle-sharp Merrick touting stocks at dollars on the dime, to penal battalion point man Private Pyle here quibbling over a few rubles, in, what, a month? I could cry.
#1
Question:
Back in 2020 (20 years ago), we had some Sci-fi Group of Medical Techies announce they had successfully cloned a baby girl already. Then there were 10 or so more cloning claims.
IF true, those clones would be late teens to adults now.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Babylon Bee] 
Reported to be at least on a par with OEM engines. 
[Western Journal] As President Joe Biden was concluding a speech at the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday, he said something that set off alarm bells among conservatives.
