It's time for a big thread 🧵 about the global triple crisis in fuel, food and fertilizers. When it started, how it continues, and what lies ahead amid Russia's war on Ukraine in Europe and the growing Sino-American bifurcation of the global system. #realpolitik#geoeconomics
Go to the link to read the whole story and look at the charts. The text here is just the introduction. The author is a long time Biden advisor from the DNC and a principal in crafting the Trump Russia hoax. BIO
Putin’s mobilization is myopically feared by some but does more damage to him at home than anything to help the war effort, the dynamics of which have been set and cannot be altered by this mobilization or “referenda,” gimmicks that reek of desperation and prove Russia is losing even to Russians
Before the war Ukraine had a GDP of $180 billion. It’s now list over 100,000 KUA, wounded and POWs, millions emigrated, two-thirds of its GDP and all of its most productive territories.
Russia controls not just Crimea but OVER TWENTY PERCENT of the Ukrainian mainland.
That’s equivalent to a hostile foreign power seizing all the southwestern U.S. land ceded by Mexico — all of it from Houston to San Francisco.
And this clown tells us that the country that seized the other’s best land, reduced it to fourth world status and destroyed 100,000 men — one third of its entire military force — is not winning, hasn’t won, but is actually losing.
#3
Russia relies on western imports of machinery, goods and technology make, run and repair nearly all industrial machinery. Also the production of oil and gas in their northern fields completely reliant on western technology. As the parts wear out, the already decrepit industrial capacity of Russia will wither away. It will also be an interesting experiment to see much oil and gas production survives the winter.
#5
/\ Yes, an endless series "military misadventures" since the end of WWII.
The 'Shadow Gov't' of the US, the 'Shadow Gov't' of Russian... are we so very different? Sadly, the intelligence communities and wealthy oligarchs appear to run both. But remember, YOUR vote counts !
#6
Re:#3: Russia is pulling all Us/Western Europe engines from its aircraft, installing domestic ones as spare parts are not available. Seriously doubt there will be any sort of certification beyond , firing them ip, quick leak check. Slam the cowling shut and launch it. Might as well make check flights revenue ones. Right?
#7
The author is a long time Biden advisor from the DNC and a principal in crafting the Trump Russia hoax.
IOW, you can't believe a word he says.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/28/2022 12:08 Comments ||
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#8
Doomed? Hell no. Allowing the neo-nazis to set up camp and become entrenched like the jiahadis in the middle east - that would be the worst thing Putin and Russians could do.
It is so apparent to me. The Americans used AQ and mujahedeens in the 80s and 90s as their asymmetrical plausible deniability proxy threat. Now thirty years later, they are trying to emulate that model but instead are using neo-nazis - and now quite openly w/o much discretion.
[Washington Examiner] Trump donor and confidante Steve Wynn, a casino magnate, might go to trial in a lobbying case, a new filing by both parties indicates.
Wynn is accused of being a lobbyist for China without registering as a foreign agent as the law requires. Wynn denies that he was a Chinese agent and thus that he was ever required to register.
Whether or not the Justice Department is right to prosecute Wynn, considering that the apparent lobbying happened back in 2017, the tale of what Wynn did and why is an intriguing lesson in how China influences U.S. policy through U.S. businessmen who seek the communist government’s favor.
Wynn operated casinos in Macau, an officially autonomous region of China and the largest gambling hub in the world. The casinos all operate at the pleasure of Macau government, which in turn rules at the pleasure of Beijing. The casinos all profit from Macau’s national monopoly on gambling, which of course is enforced by Beijing. And in 2014, Beijing began cracking down on "graft" in the casinos, sending the clear message that if the Chinese Communist Party is displeased with you, you will not run a resort or casino in Macau.
Wynn Macau is one of the region’s largest resorts and casinos. This helped make Wynn even richer, but it also made him dependent on the good graces of the CCP.
That’s why it caught the FBI’s attention in 2017 when Wynn, a large fundraiser for Donald Trump, used his access to the then president to lobby for something that had nothing to do with casinos. Wynn convinced Trump, temporarily, to send Chinese dissident Guo Wengui back to China for prosecution. Intelligence officials talked Trump out of it and soon began focusing on Wynn.
The charge is that Wynn became Beijing’s agent to keep his lucrative casinos in Macau. Wynn says he was merely passing along a diplomatic request from China.
With this episode in mind, though, we need to wonder who else is doing China’s bidding on what. We know multinational enterprises kowtow to China all the time — see Hollywood and the NBA. But how many American or European CEOs are coming back from China and pressing their home country for something that’s a Chinese government priority but has no direct bearing on the specific company?
It's a perk of leading a communist government with a robust industrial policy: Every significant businessman has to do your bidding. Who has lobbied whom against export controls, energy independence, etc.? I hope the FBI is investigating more than just Wynn on this score.
[IsraelTimes] Brothers of Italia leader has highlighted ties to Likud party; Israel, which has boycotted other European far-right leaders, yet to react to election results.
Italia’s Giorgia Meloni, who is on track to become the country’s first far-right leader since Mussolini in World War II, has long tried to distance herself from her party’s fascist ...anybody you disagree with, damn them... past and indicated she would be a strong supporter of Israel, even boasting of ties to the Likud party.
Continued on Page 49
[NakedCapitalism] The Iron Curtain of the 1940s and ’50s was ostensibly designed to isolate the Soviet Union from Western Europe — to keep out Communist ideology and military penetration. Today’s sanctions regime is aimed inward, to prevent America’s NATO and other Western allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China. The aim is not so much to isolate Russia and China as to hold these allies firmly within America’s own economic orbit. Allies are to forego the benefits of importing Russian gas and Chinese products, buying much higher-priced U.S. LNG and other exports, capped by more U.S. arms.
The sanctions that U.S. diplomats are insisting that their allies impose against trade with Russia and China are aimed ostensibly at deterring a military buildup. But such a buildup cannot really be the main Russian and Chinese concern. They have much more to gain by offering mutual economic benefits to the West. So the underlying question is whether Europe will find its advantage in replacing U.S. exports with Russian and Chinese supplies and the associated mutual economic linkages.
What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors?
Continued on Page 49
#1
The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest. As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27: "If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another NordStream 2 will not move forward." The problem is to create a suitably offensive incident and depict Russia as the aggressor.
^ Exactly so. That rancid cunt Nuland née Needleman is the bitch who kicked over the hornet’s nest in 2014. Now she and fellow idiots Sullivan and Blinken are playing more games, with NordStream.
Someone needs to out these demented fuckers before they set off World War III.
#2
Biden approved Nord Stream 2 almost 1 year before Putin invaded Ukraine, in spite of near universal opposition. Try somewhere else with your perverted accounting of history.
Posted by: Bob Jenkins ||
09/28/2022 2:22 Comments ||
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#8
#6 It’s childish jokers like you who deny reality. Biden vowed to shut down NordStream. The disbelieving German reporter pushed him on it, and Biden the moron-in-chief doubled down, saying “I promise you it’ll be shut down.”
He said so and Vicky Cunt-Nuland said so. Deny it all you like but doing so only makes you look even more foolish.
Posted by: Lumpy Prince of the Veps5196 ||
09/28/2022 2:29 Comments ||
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#9
Dummy, the Germans shut it down. That you have a huge chip on your shoulder because Victoria Nuland spurned your clumsy drunken advances is not Biden's problem.
#13
The Ukrainians are too lame and the Poles are too stupid.
That's one of the things I most disliked about Russians. Their casual racism and sense of unearned superiority. It makes needless enemies and leads to actions without considering the consequences. As the saying goes, Russians are either at your feet or at your throat. No middle ground.
#15
So cute. I can sense the desperation and flop sweat on your brow from 6000 miles away. Have you received your death notice, I mean mobilization notice? You will.
#16
There is no vital US interest at stake in that wretched shot bike called Ukraine.
It’s a measure of how unbelievably corrupt and foolish our leaders are that they are not content to throw billions down this rathole every week — they are now actually risking World War III over this 4th world shithole.
With a corrupt lapdog press cheering them on and pushing nonstop lies and fables 24/7
We need to throw these lunatics out of office before they destroy us all
#20
^ Exactly. “We” normals don’t like Ukrainians any more than we like Afghans or Somalis or Iraqis or any of the miserable hopelessly corrupt 4th-worlders whose internal quarrels our foolish leaders keep dragging us into.
With their lies and retarded theories about how every crisis is 1938 all over again.
With their ludicrous bullshit about defending “democracy” in these corrupt, festering bandit-ridden shitholes — as if they hadn’t trashed our own democracy.
Now they are literally talking about nuclear war. They’re insane.
What is a shot bike? It looks like an insult in another language translated literally into English instead of idiomatically, which is why it makes no sense to me. Or possibly I’m just missing the American cultural referent — my upbringing was eccentric enough that that happens from time to time.
BERLIN (Reuters) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had weeks ago warned Germany about possible attacks on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, German magazine Spiegel said on Tuesday, after gas leaks in Russia pipelines to Germany were reported.
The German government received the CIA tip in summer, Spiegel reported, citing unnamed sources, adding that Berlin assumes a targeted attack on Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
A German government spokesperson declined to comment, Spiegel added.
#26
#25 duh, the CIA were going to attack. Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline? If they wanted to mess with Europe they'd just turn off the gas, not destroy billions of dollars of infrastructure.
Everyone I know looked at me funny when I said that the US was going to treat Europe like the Middle East and aim to completely destabilize all of it then reap whatever it can gain from opportunities that the chaos provides.
It is the only way that they know how to operate. Europe is now a major theater for them and they are operating in it exactly as they operate everywhere else in the world.
#31
#1 “That rancid cunt Nuland née Needleman is the bitch who kicked over the hornet’s nest in 2014. Now she and fellow idiots Sullivan and Blinken are playing more games, with NordStream.”
Heh. Before she married into the Kagan neocon clan, Vicky Noodles’ family were Noodlemen. A rancid cunt that smells as tank by any name.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/28/2022 11:25 Comments ||
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#41
Nope. Sounds like Siri auto-corrected “shit” to “shot” and then the mid-typed word “hole” came out as typo “b” (instead of adjacent letter “h”) + “i” (instead of adjacent letter “o”) + “k” (instead of adjacent letter “l”) + “e” for bike.
Just a typo, iow. Don’t git yer panties in a wad, folks
#42
Snark of the day from the russky spokesman: the Biden clowns’ blaming Russia for Wyle E Coyote-Noodleman’s latest fuckup in his/her/xis’ NordStream caper is “predictably stupid and absurd”
So predictable. So fucking stupid. Them’s our leaders
#43
Over a shithole country where we don’t even have any vital interest at stake.
I don't know about the rest of us but I believe the Biden crime family has some interest there. Gotta look at the big picture, though. When Biden said "For the love of God that man cannot remain in power", it might have been one of those moments when his particular brand of dementia caused him to utter the truth, at least as he sees it. Biden wants regime change in Moscow so he can spread his family's tentacles all the way to Kamchatka.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/28/2022 12:49 Comments ||
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#44
Just a typo, iow.
That’s why I asked. Given the number of languages our regulars speak, plus the current-events trigger visitors, I don’t make assumptions in either direction.
#45
I don't know about the rest of us but I believe the Biden crime family has some interest there.
Remember when every Applicant for the Current Thing was hoisting the Blue and Gold, Meghan McCain used the fact there there is a street named after her dad in Kyeeeev as a moral justification for intervention?
#49
Trolls back! Worried about getting that mobilization notice, eh? Soon, you too will experience the Ukrainian winter with nothing but a rusty AK between you and the snow and the incoming. Enjoy!
#53
CIA stirring up shit, fucking over the Germans, trying to set off World War III. The former Polish Minister Sikorski just admitted it: “Thank you, America!” per the Polack.
I mean, I know his compatriots are famous for being stupid but really, why be so obvious?
Are they retarded? Or just being paid off? By whom?
#54
The trolls are starting to convince me that it was Russia, to create a wedge issue between the US and Germany. At any rate, we now know the latter is the Kremlin line for today.
#55
"Blame the usual suspects unseen
And unclean for that bubble machine!"
While down in the vaults,
To a comradely waltz,
Dance green yuan, marks, and rubles.
"Ameen!"
#57
Talk to Radoslaw Sikorski, former Polish Foreign Minister. Sikorski’s wetting his pants with joy, blowing kisses to America / the CIA all over Twitter . Example: “Mala rzecz, a cieszy. As we say in Polish, a small thing, but so much joy.”
Is Sikorski trolling? Really?
Are you really so stupid as to believe Russia would blow up its own pipeline?
#58
And might I just add, "rancid c---"
Trumps all that bad news from the front!
I squirmed, even winced,
But am firmly convinced
Putin's hit a--
"Home run?"
Trickling bunt.
boost the dollar and create new export markets for US natural gas without permitting new drilling in the US;
push down the uppity Germans and even make them totally dependent on the US;
tell fairy tales to gullible US voters that Russia blew up its own pipeline — about as credible as saying Hunter Crackhead’s laptop was all a Russky Plot;
and prolong the pointless war and funnel more $$$$ to their pet military contractors.
Watch as they try to blame the coming nuclear war on… you guessed it:
T
R
U
M
P
!
Posted by: Marilyn Ulainter6399 ||
09/28/2022 19:51 Comments ||
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#66
An old story:
In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.
Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time, describes the episode in "At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War," to be published next month [2004] by Ballantine Books. Reed writes that the pipeline explosion was just one example of "cold-eyed economic warfare" against the Soviet Union that the CIA carried out under Director William J. Casey during the final years of the Cold War.
At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it.
"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes.
"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.
Posted by: Marilyn Ulainter6399 ||
09/28/2022 20:16 Comments ||
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#67
Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline?
Remember Chernobyl and how the Russians caused that all on their own? Hanlon’s Razor: Never Attribute to Malice That Which is Adequately Explained by Stupidity. Not that I discount the theory that somebody's 'dirty tricks' group could have done it.
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.
[Washington Examiner] Trump donor and confidante Steve Wynn, a casino magnate, might go to trial in a lobbying case, a new filing by both parties indicates.
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
Nothing should be discounted at this point.
