It is said that when the going gets weird, the weird go pro.
Well, boys, girls and winged wombats: Hold my Port Wine and watch this!
Let me first register that I’m profoundly uncomfortable living in a time when the difference between conspiracy theory and reality is more or less two weeks and shortening.
Look, I’m in a profession where assembling fantastical patterns of events is my trade, okay? That means I’ve striven my entire life to not bring work home.
Normally the most obvious explanation is the real one. If I come home and there a bunch of white fur on the back rug, the explanation is likely that Havey-cat has been rolling in it again, not that aliens with white fur came in through the back door to steal data from my computer. I mean, the second one is admittedly more fun, and incredibly flattering (The aliens want MY data) but the chances of its being true are very, very low.
Now imagine I come home and there’s the same white fur on the rug. Well, it’s mostly white, but the middle is bright pink and the ends are a beautiful rose gold.
Yes, it is entirely possible that my son lost his mind and dyed the cat strange colors. But it’s probably less likely that this happened than that some creature with fur yet unknown came in through the back door, for purposes unexplained.
Right now, world news (and to an extent national news) wise, I’m sitting here staring at rug with white/bright pink and rose gold fur, and trying really hard not to get carried away.
But the problem is, you see, that once we eliminate the impossible (say son wasn’t home to dye the cat) the improbable, no matter how improbable must be the truth.
I’ve felt this way in the recent past, when the Covidiocy began. I really didn’t want to assume the whole thing was overblown and that a panic was being instigated by our idiot left (in cooperation with the idiot left that is the establishment in the rest of the civilized — no one can call it free — word) for the purpose of unseating Trump (Trump’s going along with, and cooperating still makes me profoundly uneasy.)
But facts are facts. And the fact that the masses of homeless, who were not actually subjected to any restrictions in association, and who — oh boy — were camping all over Denver in big grotesque masses while the tax-payers were subjected to house arrest, weren’t dropping like flies meant this was not the black plague. This was corroborated by the fact that in the Diamond Princess cruise ship, under horrific conditions and with a compromised population (Very old, often very sickly) the death rate was that of a severe flu season (probably less than a severe flu aboard the petri-dish ships.)
This meant that everything, from the initial house arrest, to the ever lengthening two weeks, to the relentless fear propaganda, the bizarre muzzle mandates, the experimental RNA treatment mandates…. all of it, all the entire scruff and ruff and disgusting mess were not needed and were in fact put in place for some reason having absolutely nothing to do with public health.
I won’t lie: I felt like I was going nuts, because it was so obvious. And yet, businesses, churches, schools meekly closed, when the data was available everywhere. And people I was used to considering sane, or at least not complete raving lunatics, were chasing me all over facebook to wish me death on a ventilator. (And btw, my inside knowledge didn’t help here, because most deaths on a ventilator are because of the ventilator settings, which most doctors are iffy on using. Or were at least at the beginning of this. And which btw are always dangerous to the extreme elderly who have fragile tissues.)
Now it’s been two years of two weeks to flatten the curve, and even though my new doctor appointment cautioned me that I have to wear a mask (SUCH nonsense) even the CDC is admitting the muzzles of stupidity do nothing, even when they are the triple muzzles of complete stupidity invented by Mengele Jr Dr. Fauci. And the “Vaccine” is no longer necessary because “We did it, Joe” and the magic of the incoherent zombie has, between one week and the next vanished the dread plague that never was. Of course, dealing with the people who are still freaking out after two years of propaganda is going to take years. Our children have permanent cognitive deficits that might never be made up (no, seriously, the time for formation of language is short, and it does close) because they were unnecessarily barred from seeing human faces for two years. Young men have permanent damage to their hearts from the completely unneeded vaccine. More children and elderly have died from not-a-vax than the virus. People have lost jobs, careers and businesses. And the horrific torture of seniors, who either died alone or fell off he cognitive cliff because of house arrest has scarred the psyches of those of us aware enough to know.
But, hey, it can all be swept away just before the State of the Union, so that maybe the Marxist Spokeszombie’s numbers can be bolstered. (They can’t. And given the origin of those polls I suspect his real approval is in the single digits and confined to those seniors who have been shut in with a television for 2 years, and exquisitely indoctrinated college graduates who because of the lock downs have never held a job.)
So, no. I wasn’t crazy. The massive, nonsensical power grabs truly were gratuitous and for the purpose of stealing an election (Which is why it was a potemkin election, where fraud was always supposed to give them victory. Which tells you how large it was to begin with. The fact it failed and forced them to cheat more at the last minute, in front of G-d and everyone has them in a panic since. Hence the fencing around the capitol, the insanity with Jan 6 and the fact they didn’t immediately let us go back to normal.)
So, not crazy, even if in the grip of disabling-levels of anger.
And isn’t it weird that the moment people stopped wearing masks and communicated clearly they’d had it and also, incidentally, that they were in a rebellious mood by donating to the Canadian trucker convoy, a new thing appeared to suck all the air out of the room? Internationally. Overnight. So that our own convoys (and yes, there are others than the glowing one) disappeared from view, and that talk of a general strike was swept under the rug? And isn’t it weird that the new crisis is of a sort that allows our occupying government to declare a national emergency which allows them to control opposing speech? And to declare any actions — say general strike — in opposition to their genocidal and bizarre agenda “treason” and “comfort to the enemy.” And note, please, that they can apply these tags whether it makes any remote sort of sense or not. See the screams of Trump collusion with Russia, or the accusations that we are all in Russian pay, even though I’ve hated Russian influence and the Russian government since they wore the mask of the Soviet Union. (International socialism was always Russian nationalism, and anyone who pretends otherwise is trying really hard not to see through the gauze-thin mask.)
“But Sarah! You’re insane! I mean Putin just invaded the Ukraine when he did. Why woud you be suspicious?”
Well, why indeed. Considering two years of the rankest lies and propaganda, a jolly new call to arms when we were getting tired of the covidiocy, and “climate change” (Which has brought out new extra alarming predictions, to match all the ones that have never come true) wasn’t getting the traction they really wanted it to get, seems…. uh…. made to order.
And to quote my mom, when the alms are too big, the beggar gets suspicious.
How big is this alms? Well, the incursion into Ukraine is sure to get rid of the evidence of the Biden Crime Family meddling with that sovereign country. Also, in the future, it would make it unlikely that anyone would mention that meddling, because, well, do you want to be accused of being pro-Russia. Because you’d be. Because wars reduce things to binary choices. In addition, see the ability of the current Junta to slam down draconian controls on the populace, a la Woodrow Wilson. Why — that might allow them to impunely steal the 2022 elections. And maybe the 2024. And no one will dare say they were stolen. And the military won’t rebel, because more wars mean more promotions (why twinkle bottom Vanilli Milley lied and disobeyed a sitting president.) Hell, keep the war going long enough, inflict enough damage, and the global “elites” can keep power forever and establish the Great Reset as they meant to! (No, they actually can’t, because the entire idea is the kind of idea only a deranged idiot who has never met a real human being would believe in. But they can, actually and for real, destroy civilization. I am however talking about what a desperate, losing-power largely senile and addled or congenitally stupid group thinks they can do.)
Color this beggar very suspicious.
“But Sarah,” you’ll say. “You’re positing that the Junta is collaborating with Putin. How can that be, when they’re slamming down on Russian accounts and talking about how evil Putin is worldwide.”
Um….. yes. Yes, they are. Now consider that Biden is wholly owned by China, and that China has a treaty with Putin’s Moscow.
Note also that this isn’t necessary, in the sense of a full on cooperation. Putin is an old guard international socialist looking to conquer the world for Russian nationalism, that is. All it would take would be signaling that Biden would be okay with Putin annexing Russia, to get us where we are.
But–
But…. Look, yeah, Russian bombast, but has it ever occurred to you that there are too many lies floating around about the brave and plucky Ukranian resistance? That it’s passingly bizarre that the Russians are losing the part of the war they’re really good at (making up shit and propaganda) to Ukraine? That the left is suddenly very chicken hawky and demanding that we go to war and that of course Putin isn’t going to nuke us? And that Putin has gone from being a cagey and weird corruptocrat to sounding exactly like a Bond Villain? “If I can’t have Ukraine, I’ll nuke you all!”
Uh Uh. Perhaps the same Hollywood that can no longer write anything but remakes is now scripting his speeches? Which would mean, yes, that he is in on it, and looking to– I don’t know, but there are several upsides for him in this:
Even if he “loses” he’s likely to have gained territory, and leaves the door open to gaining more and maybe restoring his dream of a world-powerful Russia. Sure, China is in the way, but China is, has been and will always be, a “Potemkin superpower” and Putin likely knows it. He’ll get rid of young men who are likely to — always — cause trouble. And he can institute draconian measures at home (more than usual) and quell incipient rebellion. He can also divorce from Western bank and work with China which will facilitate further repression, etc.
And honestly, it’s better for that old horror if our “elites” stay in power. Pissed off people in control of their own destiny might give Russians ideas, no?
So, looking at the jolly war going on, it seems to me the international globalists are putting on a show for the peasants.
Sure, Ukrainian people are being killed for real, infrastructure destroyed, and lives ripped to shreds. And of course, yes, Russian young men are all so getting killed.
So? People aren’t real to these would be aristocrats. They never wore. They’re numbers on a paper. Nothing more.
The only question remaining is whether they’ll actually nuke a few American and maybe European cities, just to cow the population and make yet another power grab. (It won’t work, not in the long run. By which I mean a year or two. But one shudders to think what they’ll do when that falls apart.)
Which brings me to where I am: Yes, I hate Putin. He’s KGB. I’ve hated the KGB and the Soviets (Aka Russian imperialists) longer than many of you have been alive, and while the left still though they were their beau ideal. Besides, to be fair, I hate and despise all totalitarian regimes and all regimes that treat humans as markers in a game. (Tiddly winks. None of the current crop is up to chess.)
Yes, I think Ukraine is suffering, and that real people are dying.
But I think our getting involved will just be playing into the plan that started this. And frankly, the longer we delay in getting socialism into the midden of history, the longer and more bizarre their plans will get, and the more people will die.
I feel for the Russian people, losing their sons in this nonsense, but I don’t think anything can be gained by adding our sons and our livelihoods to this.
Russia needs to clean house and get rid of Putin. I don’t even know if that’s possible, because honestly I don’t understand Russian mentality very well. And their press has been controlled so long, there’s nothing to lean on. Not from the 20th century onwards.
So, I more wish and hope than know that they’ll step up.
And we need to clean house. Peacefully, if possible. Which starts with stepping up to the plate and telling the Junta and its machinations “No. And also no. Let me suggest where you can stick it and with how much force.”
And it requires we ignore the distractions thrown at us, and fight for our own freedom. Then and only then can we help others free themselves.
In other words, secure your own oxygen mask, before helping others.
Don’t be distracted. No matter what the sideshow is, the fight remains the same.
Get rid of the would be aristoi, and make sure that government of the people for the people shall not perish from this Earth.
It is the cause of Humanity, and the civilization depends on it.
According To Hoyt 
All for involvement being sending more missiles to Ukraine via various means, and for going back to being an Oil/Gas Exporting nation driving down prices so to hurt both Putin, and Opec. I’d love for Russia’s economy to crash further, but right now most of its assistance is our economy being trash as well (made the mistake of looking deep at my 401k this morning…FJB!).
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I suspect you ain’t seen nothin yet.
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Holy Mole, Sarah, I’m ready to go all Braveheart and charge into, well, somewhere after that one. Whew!
You nailed it.
Yours truly, from a long-time reader and a first-time replyer.
PS – I love the late-night Hoyt edition of Instapundit too. A little habenero-like heat to spice up late night.
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Well, life is indeed profoundly weird. Switzerland, SWITZERLAND! has frozen Russian accounts. Germany claims to be funding its military. I don’t think the expected pivot to glow bull warming was working out, but I don’t see how the Ukrainian war helps that with all the countries (except us) trying to reset energy policy to sanity (nuclear and natural gas), not praying vainly to the gods of sun and wind.
As your mom said, “When the alms are too big, the beggar gets suspicious.” But even if there is a conspiracy, I don’t think knowing it gives me any advantage at frustrating it. I think the best course is personal resistance to liberty encroachment. I try to do my part, first with my inside my company public resistance to the absurd vaccine mandate, and now with my attempt to call attention to the Fidel Tru-doh banking disaster. May God have mercy on all our souls.
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The Switzerland thing is Swiss banks, which probably means “I’m the young guy who’s now old enough to be in charge of the bank, and I spent a lot of time at Davos and World Economic Forum and drank the Kool-Aid… but also they have incriminating pictures of me, and my drugdealer turned out to be working for Them.”
Because honestly, unmarked accounts were the Swiss banks’ bread and butter for a long time. They’ve been floating the idea of bending to international bank rules, but not seriously. So it’s weird that they are doing this suddenly and together, and by weird I mean “obviously the blackmail is extensive.”
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Putin is putting a squeeze play on the banks, for the purpose of shutting the Russian oligarchs (his rivals) out of cash. He plans to force a fire sale. https://rau-tng.blogspot.com/2022/03/fighting-visceral-response.html
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That social media is still trying to lock down ‘harmful misinformation’ that can cause ‘societal harm’, ‘violent extremism’ or ‘public health harm’ means that there is intent to take advantage of that censorship, later.
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Tyrants always love new ways to control a population. Censorship has ever been popular with such men. And always will be.
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“Russian propaganda” now.
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The fact that the United States returned to being a net energy exporter was a world historic event. The fact that we are no longer a net energy exporter is all that is necessary to expose the rot at the center of the regime.
The regime is insane. These are people who will speak with a straight face about blocking the sun to appease their goddess. The problem is they’ve been getting away with it. Before two years ago the fact that people would seriously mask their children was absurd, now it’s the status quo.
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While it’s the status quo, more people are realizing it’s insane. And where I am no one masks their kids.
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Alas, they still mask them here. Jacques Ellul, a leftist but not a communist, in his Propaganda talks of how the intellectual is particularly susceptible to propaganda. So it has been with the WuFlu. Masks are definitely a class marker and my family are marked out as class traitors.
Now they’re all flying Ukrainian flags. Not one in fifty of them could have found Ukraine on a map before last week and not more than one in ten could do it now. Still, it’s good to know that hate has no place here and that someone’s name will be said, whose they don’t say but it must be someone. Ah, the very discrete charms of the bourgeoisie.
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Intellectuals? LOL! Sheep that think they’re made of silk when they’ve been fleeced.
A long-ago girlfriend whose friends apparently fancied themselves intellectuals once told me, with a tone of faint surprise, “You’re not intellectual, but you’re really smart.”
It’s possible that she meant it as a veiled insult (she was not a nice person), but at the time I took it as a compliment. The 18 years I worked in academia verified that it was very much a compliment.
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It’s mixed in Flyover Falls. The Fred Meyer (Kroger) tends to have the highest percentage of masked people, and some of the mommies will mask their kids. Fewer than when OMGicron got whipped up. The big independent has some people masked; staff is supposed to, but I saw a worker bee smiling. Yay!
Despicable Kate Brown is magnanimously ending the mask mandate 3/12. (All praise to Cthulu-ette!) OTOH, health care settings (including the pharmacy department of box stores) still have the requirement, and will do so until bureaucrat, bureaucrat a la lanterne or hell freezes over, or it’s hurting the radical left wing of the Fusion party.
Great-nephew turned 1 not too long ago. Niece elected to be a stay-at-home Mom, so he’s pretty much used to real faces. He hates masked faces, emphatically and loudly, I’m told. It’s too far to visit, but we’re fond of the boy.
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Surprise. Surprise. My local Fred Meyer, on Division, has ALL “Mask Required” signs down as of last Monday, 2/28. Surprised the heck out of me. Figured they’d be one of the last minute ones. Still a lot of masked patrons, and of coarse the employees. Got one funny look from a fellow customer. I shrugged and said “Hey. Signs are down. Who am I to argue?” Masks came off her and her older children. Then I tried to play innocent at Papa Murphy’s … Didn’t work. However did play “when does the mask removal occur”. It keeps marching back (April Fools Day, 3/19, 3/11, …). I think current edict is 3/10. But with feds shutting it down Monday before the SOTU
dumpster firespeech bythe idiot in chief(sigh)Go Brandon(sigh)what his name(okay, fine) President’s speech, figureddespicablemight have announced it was done … no such luck.LikeLike
Haven’t paid attention to mask signs, so no idea of Fred Meyer still has them.
I think it’s demographics. Fred’s draws more white collar people than the independent (partly due to being more like an upscale Walmart), while the independent draws ranchers, blue collar workers, and curmudgeons like me. (Hell, I shop at multiple places each market day. No collars on my shirts, so I’m honestly a red neck. [grin]).
I don’t go to Wally World any more, (nor Albertson’s) so no idea on mask usage. It’s low at the restaurant supply, but not quite zero among customers.
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I avoid Wally too. Albertson’s avoid because generally higher prices; and by the time I’ve stopped at Costco, Petsmart, Freds, Pet Mart, I don’t want to stop at one more store that has something I can do without that none the others carry. We’ll see what happens when the new WinCo opens up on Chad Drive. That gives me Costco, Petsmart, and WinCo, all on the same block. Shop Costco, drive across street (heck sometimes I park across street depending on how nuts parking at Costco is), shop Petsmart, then walk to WinCo. Problem with WinCo, is they don’t take credit (over time that 1% adds up :-) kidding JIC). Don’t go to the existing WinCo stores because, in general, way out of the way. Not that big of savings over Freddies.
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I’m in the Northeast Ohio region, very few stores are requiring the mask, most have taken their signs down. I don’t even bother to carry a mask anymore. I’m traveling to Chicago this weekend, will have to bring one along, but I plan to leave it in my pocket, unless someone makes a major fuss.
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That gives me Costco, Petsmart, and WinCo, all on the same block.
:jealous:
I like hyvee, but wow do I miss WinCo.
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WinCo is going into the abandoned ShopKo building on Chad Drive. Puts WinCo and Petsmart on the NE corner or Chad and Coburg Road, and Costco on the SE corner. Almost didn’t happen. The neighborhoods on the eest side of Coburg, and east side of the business complex, complained the current “road infrastructure couldn’t handle the extensive extra traffic WinCo would cause”. Blink? What the heck? That is the Costco location, for the southern Willamette Valley!!!
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Ooh, nice. My MiL mostly relies on BiMart (she’s up in JC just north of you), but she likes WinCo when she visits here. I suspect my SiLs will be the one to use it more, though, since they’re the ones that go to Costco a lot.
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We already have a WinCo (Barger & Beltline) not that far away. But that is really all there is. I don’t drive that way much, since we are done with Willamette HS. IDK if that other WinCo is being kept open or not. There is an hiring employees sign for the new location. But that could be because of secondary location, or the new location is bigger.
Junction City isn’t that far from us (10 miles). We live on the north side of Eugene.
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Yesterday, Fred Meyer had the mask sign, but people seem to be celebrating the March 12 Free to Breathe* day by skipping the face diapers. Perhaps a third of the FM customers were masked, perhaps less. The independent, a bit lower.
(*) The end of Despicable Kate’s indoor mask mandate for non-school settings.
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“All praise to Cthulu-ette!”
Regrettably, TinaTheK will be Kate v2.0. (Murray would be appalled.)
Just at Costco/Chad today – still maskirovka in most, but no horrified reactions to the few scoff-idiocy folks. Then went to Walgreens, down here and they’re still masky, especially at pharmacy. Local Walmart was about 50/50 a few days ago.
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I hit the Costco in Medford in January. I had the mask on when I entered, and immediately dropped it. No complaints. In fact, the only complaint was at an Abby’s pizzeria in White City by the boss worker-bee. They may have been bullied by OR-OSHA/OHA* into enforcing it. No reaction at the Chinese place I bought dinner at.
(*) I noticed this when Kate’s edict was a bit more stringent. A small chain of stores and the places with firearms counters had to enforce it. The big boxes, not so much after the first “two weeks” in March-May 2020.
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Yes. I understand why too. Not fair. But … Small chain stores have to fear OHSA, they don’t have other options. Places with firearm counters have both OHSA, and Feds to worry about. While the other big chain stores? An empty big box does not look good. Just ask the locations with still empty huge ex-Sears and ShopKo buildings (although one of our empty ShopKo buildings is being retro fitted by WinCo). None of these empty buildings are the result of COVID. But can you imagine Kroger saying “fine” and closing Fred Meyers state wide? That is 3 huge empty buildings and not working fuel areas in Springfield and Eugene, alone. Albertson’s/Safeway would be worse (smaller buildings, more of them).
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If we lost Fred Meyer, it wouldn’t be catastrophic, but it’d leave the notch above Walmart empty. Didn’t get a Costco here because of really stupid reasons. A then big employer objected. The owner (of Jelf-Wen window and door company) objected and killed the deal due to potential wage competition. He’s gone to his reward (toasty, I think), taking much of the company with him. Idiot. No WinCo, just Fred’s, Albertsons, Walmart and the big independent for big grocers. No big department stores any more.
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No. Loosing FM wouldn’t be catastrophic locally. We still have Safeway/Albertson’s, WinCo, Wally, BiMart, and Costco. But would leave big empty stores (3 in Eugene/Springfield). Safeway/Albertson’s removals the empty stores wouldn’t be as big, but more of them. Not a good look for a city/town.
BTW. Fuel at FM today … Reg $4.49 a $0.60 jump over night. Costco Gas Buddy reports at $3.99. We’ll see what it is tomorrow.
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Not insane. Just paid off. And treasonous.
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I believe Brother Occam would hold that Putin isn’t “in on it”.
If you were in Putin’s shoes, an amoral bleepard, and you wanted to unite old Russia, little Russia, and white Russia…
When you looked at the array of Western leaders you were facing, all of which are facing civil unrest at home, in the dramatic aftermath of the Afghanistan auto de fe…
Wouldn’t you make your move?
I think the Covid thing worked because it tapped into something real.
The baby boomers were hitting average life expectancy.
How do self-obsessed, materialistic, youth-oriented people deal when their friends are rapidly dying off, and they know it’ll soon be their turn?
Not well.
Add in that they were about the only ones facing a significant threat from the disease…
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Wouldn’t it be funny to find out the entire invasion of Ukraine didn’t happen?
Not saying it isn’t, but it’s so weird we’re not seeing any fighting. And the only air battle was made in DCS…
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Yes. I’ve been asking myself for days, as each “brave Ukrainian” propaganda story falls, what is going on? The beautiful Ukrainian Miss Universe photo? She is holding an airsoft gun. The Zelensky photo of him in body armor is from a trip several years ago. The “Ghost of Kiev” is unconfirmed. The Russian tank rolling over a car is actually a Ukrainian tank.
I’m not buying the media drumbeat about brave Ukraine and evil Russia. I’m not sure what’s happening, but things aren’t what they seem. I’m worried.
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We can be pretty sure that the Russians are expansionist. I mean, that’s Russia for you. But the rest? Who knows
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ILOH had a post on Facebook about this issue. His solution was to rely on fellow (and co-) author Mike Kupari, who apparently has the ability to look at a picture of fighting or devastation, and instantly say, “That was originally shot four years ago in Syria.”
There’s a lot of stuff from earlier conflicts floating around with captions claiming it’s from the current fighting in Ukraine. However, some of those pictures are indeed new, and show wrecked Russian equipment.
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Faking stuff to discredit sources you don’t want folks to listen to is pretty standard tactic– I have noticed slightly fewer debunkings that were a self-own this time, though. (Think like factcheck websites that say “false” but you read it and it says “totally true, we don’t like it, though.)
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It’s a slippery Snopes.
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Transmitting ICBCarp targeting data to TXRed. TXRed to the big red button, please…
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:snickers:
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I believe that the evil tyrant Putin forcing his conscripted soldiers to invade the Ukraine, and that the Ukrainians are resisting as best they can, and that many thousands of refugees have begun fleeing to neighboring countries. Beyond that? Who knows. As you say, most of the hero Ukrainian stories are either unconfirmed or been proven to be fabricated. The best sources I’ve seen readily admit to fog of war making accurate reporting difficult; available satellite imagery and outage reports give some idea of the extent of the Russian advances but little more.
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As I recall, the only reported combat footage of the Ghost of Kiev were found to have been generated using DCS.
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I’ve read that the Ghost pilot’s name was a Ukrainian version of a popular internet meme (in English, Sam Hyde). I’m not familiar with the meme, but the Ghost of Kiev seems to be one of a piece with the famous Snake Island bit.
I have to limit my exposure to run of the mill conservative content; why aren’t they wondering why they’re siding with George Soros, Obama and the Hildabeast?
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Oh, we’re being played all right – by all the parties involved: the Ukrainians for the best of reasons, by the Russians because it’s what they’ve been doing for almost a hundred years, and by own own government and media for the worst of reasons.
And yes – good reason to worry; I’m pretty certain now that the Brandon administration’s flunkies took the opportunity to walk into this, just so they have an excuse to go all Wilson on us with charges of subversion and treason.
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Sucks for Ukraine. I’ve relatives (well, in laws) there, and haven’t heard from them yet. But the maskirovka is heavy just now, and a lot of big interests are swamping the little interests that could be heard in more peaceable times.
What concerns me is, what is this smoke masking in the background? Yeah, Pooty would like to have Ukraine as a Russian province, and Kyiv and all. While the sycophants in the media breathlessly report on news half the world away, what’s the Biden kleptocracy doing domestically? What’s going on here, while they’re trying to tempt our attention away?
Nothing good, I’ll warrant.
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Well, we know they seized the excuse to deploy a contingent of Border Patrol to Poland drawing from the Mexican border.
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Perhaps we could hire an extra few thousand Ukrainians to patrol our border with Mexico.
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I’m up for that.
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Because that makes sense — NOT.
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From the Junta’s perspective? It makes too much sense.
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A friend made an excellent point — were he or I border patrol agents, we’d jump at the opportunity to go to Ukraine, simply for a chance to do the job and be treated as, if not a hero, then at least a respectable person doing an important and necessary job.
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Turns out the actual story is that they asked for Customs agents to volunteer to go to Poland to help process the paperwork for folks who fled there.
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So why pull them from the busiest border? Pretty sure there’s enough not patrolling other places that the announcement would have excluded southern border sectors.
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They *asked* the entire, nation-wide department, if there were any volunteers to go un-F the paperwork (“provide guidance” and resolve “problems” with US gov’t agencies) after the state department made some stupid, lazy decisions like refusing to expedite folks trying to leave before there was an emergency if they had pets.
“Hey, hurry up and get out of there before stuff gets nasty– but if you have a pet, you’re going to have to abandon them.”
Since they’re already doing non-option rotations to the southern border to try to un-F other screwups from the Biden* admin, this isn’t going to seriously impact the border, much less the patrolling agents.
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With that plus Afghanistan, I ‘m starting to wonder if someone in charge of State Department policy used to work for PeTA
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Of course they did. No one has seen anything that remotely hints that Biden is sending agents from areas where they can be spared instead of away from the southern border is true; all we know is that Joe Biden has been handicapping border enforcement in any way he could since the Obama Administration, and sending agents to take care of Poland’s borders while refusing to enforce our own.
I’m SURE he’s operating only from the best motives.
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Since the entire story is about volunteers , thus nobody is being *sent* at all, that statement is both true and irrelevant.
But hey, you once again get to saddle up to charge at your chosen strawmen rather than dealing with either a few minutes of research or thought, because heaven forbid that the conclusion you have chosen might be poorly supported or even flatly contradicted by the facts. Much easier when you get to make things up to suit your claims.
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“Why should you believe reality when I’m telling you different?”
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From the guy who keeps making claims and accusations, then either changing the subject or running away when the facts are found show he has been stating falsehoods, that is almost impressive.
Nearly on par with when you admitted that you avoid giving details for your claims because I kept actually going and doing the research, and finding the story didn’t align with the one you wanted to tell.
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Absolutely nothing good.
Read this post from Melanie Phillips about what’s happening in the “negotiations” with Iran – aka the selling out of the Free World to the ayatollah.
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/perfidy-in-vienna?s=r
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Can something be less-than-nothing good?
Check out Melanie Phillips’s new post “Perfidy in Vienna.”
While Ukraine burns, Brandon is selling out the Wes completely to Iran.
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“West” – don’t know who Wes is, but maybe Biden should go get him.
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Meh. Obama also tried that. Fortunately Iran is too stupid to take advantage of it.
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If you want to see why I the “woke” left can be described as Communazis, there is this:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-under-fire-for-abolish-white-people-comments/
They state very explicitly that they view achievement of their goal ultimately the genocide of entire racial groups of people:
I don’t want to hear one word about “:well its just the loons on the college campuses” given how much of that lunacy has spread throughout society Mao’s Cultural Revolution style..
The CRT left are aspiring genocidal totalitarians, and they are disregarded at all our own risk.
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Do you suppose that they want to ship as many young people over there in harm’s way as they can? They aren’t drawing down the military as fast as they would like, maybe? Getting rid of a few border patrol officers might not be enough of a purge for them.
I know that seems very conspiratorial, but how weird is it that they sent border patrol off to Europe? What’s up with that?
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Simply a pretext to ramp up the open borders policy and to destroy any sort of immigration enforcement whatsoever; that is unless you are fleeing Cuba, because that is already communist and the Democrats aggressively enforce borders when people fleeing communism try to enter the country as genuine refugees.
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No. I also thought that.
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News re Wisconsin; the investigator, a former state Supreme Court justice, found that the 2020 presidential election was so corrupt it should be decertified:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/01/2020-wisconsin-vote-should-be-decertified-investigator-says-n1562797
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There is at complete minimum a ridiculous level of attempted stampede going on, and as much as I’ve really wanted to admire the sheer storycraft from Ukraine (which is impressive almost regardless of how much is made up), as the drums build for depersoning every Russian in every Western thing and all the sacrifices we in the West are supposed to undertake for these people who are Losing Everything, I get super leery about what all of this is meant to accomplish.
I’m not sure I get quite to the Putin’s-in-on-it level, but there is at least an awful lot of hay being made while the sun is shining. And dear goodness, but the “a minor incursion wouldn’t count” bit was all but an engraved invitation, no secret communication required. >.<
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Alfred didn’t burn the cakes, Robert Bruce didn’t watch a spider rebuild its web, Washington didn’t cut down the cherry tree. It’s not by facts we are moved, but by stories,
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Funny thing– that cherry tree debunking might be a myth itself– it was definitely not created decades later, as the debunking claimed.
They set a standard that was abnormally high for a family story– sometimes including exact phrasing– and there *are* records of family friends telling the story about how Washington had taken an ax to his dad’s tree, and then admitting it when asked.
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I thought it was in Parson Weems but I never actually read Parson Weems. A myth about a myth. Ha. that’s so meta.
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But wait, what if the myth being a myth is ITSELF the myth?
My God, are we in mythception?
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Take an Asprin and write us in the morning about your mythadventures.
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I have no headache and no need of aspirin, sir; you are mythtaken.
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So, were the cherry tree debunkers mything the point?
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I think they latched onto a red herring and got mythled, yes.
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…that was hideous.
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Not sure if it was good or bad that the carpapult wasn’t deployed. :)
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I’m hoping we can keep it up long enough to drive Sarah crazy. If we run out of puns before she snaps, it’ll be a mythed opportunity. ;)
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Mazes are properly mythic.
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Washington DID cut down the cherry tree, seemingly. The other ones? Who knows.
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c4c
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Yes, it is entirely possible that my son lost his mind and dyed the cat strange colors. But it’s probably less likely that this happened than that some creature with fur yet unknown came in through the back door, for purposes unexplained.
:A large, tuxedo pattern cat walks by, dragging a truly hideous stuffed toy:
:You do not have a tuxedo cat:
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But…but…the cat *said* he was a tuxedo cat…
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One of our boys is obviously a ninja, disguised as a tuxedo cat.
He even has an Evil Goatee.
He’d probably draft his big dummy brother to do anything obvious like sneak into Sarah’s house with a toy….
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My two (late great) orange guys would have teamed up to do something like that. They spent a lot of time plotting.
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Our orange twins used to open locked doors as a tag team effort.
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He just had a formal kitty ball to attend, the tuxedo cat did. Just a rental.
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Of course. He’s going to the Jellicle Ball.
*SIGH* T.S. Elliott spilled the beans on that one.
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>> “:You do not have a tuxedo cat:”
Correction: you do NOW. By the time you see him, that sort of cat’s already picked out his room. :P
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They will get rid of Putin the way they got rid of Stalin. (Put off calling the doctor until the stroke he’s having kills him.)
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That it’s passingly bizarre that the Russians are losing the part of the war they’re really good at (making up shit and propaganda) to Ukraine?
At least part of this is change is because people have spent the last two years watching the levers get pulled– folks who NEVER thought about it before were largely isolated from the a lot of the pressures, folks’ stories weren’t organized.
And the Russian bots have been obvious enough that I’m starting to think the “everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi” thing wasn’t just folks being lazy, it was misinformation’s strings showing.
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And it’s clearly wrong, because everybody who disagrees with me is a Commie, except for a few Nazis. ;-p
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So sayeth Mooselini Trudeau.
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Edit-yes, Trudeau actually asserted that either yesterday or today. Again,
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Can’t be. I refuse to believe that Trudeau accused people of being Commies! He’d consider that a compliment!
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Yeah, I’m not surprised that Ukraine can beat Russia at its own propaganda game. Yes, with tech Russian trolls have a much further reach, but their tactics in terms of *what* they say and to whom are the same. And, Foxfier is right, the last two years have opened up eyes all over the place.
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I suspect Ukraine involvement may well be the ‘wedge’ that divides the opposition and allows the left to retain power through 2022 and beyond.
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I doubt it. I very seriously doubt it.
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Thank you Mrs Hoyt for a quite good view of current events.
As for kung flu, I have been at my mother’s bedside, well, outside the building anyway, for 2 weeks now. Between being socially isolated for 2 years with the kung flu and then the hurricane in August, my mother has lost her grip on reality it seems. I am afraid to even contemplate what the not-a-vax and boosters may have done to accelerate and/or cause this.
My anger had been simmering since this all began and it is now fiery hot.
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I am so sorry. That’s a really rough place to be.
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I’m so sorry.
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I understand. Sorry.
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That’s very difficult, I’m so sorry.
We lost my mom to the clot shot–she got a stroke.
One of the last things she ever said to me was “Don’t lecture me!” about the mask.
There is a lot of anger in our hearts, that cold simmer has turned fiery for a lot of us.
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That is super-rough.
Just for paranoia and hope’s sake, check what meds and vitamins she’s taking. When older people seem to be going downhill mentally, it is very often a case of medicines interacting, too large of doses, weird vitamin stuff, and so on.
Also it could be sensory problems, like the hearing aids not working right.
Even if it’s not everything, these things can make a big bad difference, and sometimes they can be fixed.
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Oh, yeah, and also oxygen levels. Obviously it’s hard to think straight if you’re not getting enough air, having sleep apnea, etc.
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Pain medications that make a new doctor walking in go “What the [bleep]!!!”
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We now know that the Ukrainian armed forces had already been incorporated into NATO, and therefore NATO membership was assured, and therefore NATO weapons on the Russian border, which the Russians had long said would not be allowed–any more than we allowed missiles in Cuba….So the simple explanation is that Russia wouldn’t allow something that neither China nor the US would allow either…And it’s curious, if a lot of fighting is going on, why we’re not seeing any videos of it, and Kiev appears untouched…IOW…Fake crisis…
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Ukraine has had partnership agreements with NATO since 1991. As a lot of other countries do. It’s not news and the information has been available via NATO since then.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_37750.htm
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There is also the treaty by which the integrity of Ukraine’s borders was guaranteed by both Russia and the USA in exchange for their surrendering their Soviet era nukes after the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet another treaty that has been proven to be a worthless peace of paper.
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It was an agreement, but not actually a treaty. And arguably bad. If the Ukrainians had kept a few nukes, would they be suffering a Russian invasion right now?
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Probably they would. Nukes don’t maintain themselves, and the Ukrainian military budget wasn’t even enough to issue working ammo to all their riflemen. At one point, as I have recently read, their combat-effective strength was down to about 6,000 from a nominal strength of something like 400,000.
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Pretty sure they could have kept maintenance going on a couple dozen.
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Junior’s objection is probably stronger than mine.
But with the paltry sums Ukraine had available for defence, I doubt they could have kept any of the necessary engineers and technicians to keep the warheads tuned up. Such skills command high prices on the open market, and the number of people required does not scale linearly with the number of weapons – there is a minimum establishment you would need to keep going at all.
In fact, fiscal necessity probably was a big reason why they let the nukes go.
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Depends.
We all have a Los Alamos Primer/Tom Clancy/basic physics understanding of the first principles, quiaf?
Very precise timing of the triggering and progression of the explosions, to get the right compression of the fissile material.
From first principles, we can see that technicians can do ordinary maintenance of the devices, over a short period of time.
I’ve just checked the half lives of likely isotopes, and it looks like I was wrong to suspect that the degradation of the fissile material might be important over thirty years. Wait, I’m not sure how chemically reactive those isotopes are, I’m back to uncertain again.
The explosives are very unlikely to be chemically stable over thirty years. At the very least, there should be a loss of potency. Which means it isn’t just technicians, it is also engineers who understand the physics of the design, and a plant to produce the explosive.
A lot of maintenance gets costly in engineering as you start talking about sustaining decades of service life.
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I believe there’s also an issue where the radiation over time degrades the HE itself, not to mention the electronic fusing. As in, it’s only good for a few decades, and then basically has to be disassembled and a new warhead built around the pit.
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Also, when this topic came up during the Russian invasion of Georgia, someone in the conversation at the time noted that the Soviets had probably put various safety codes on the missiles. So if Ukraine had decided to seize the missiles and hold onto them for their own security, they would have had to figure out how to undo the codes while simultaneously dealing with the Russian invasion (to get the missiles back) that would have almost certainly resulted. Remember that the people sitting in the silos at the time of the treaty were members of the Russian military, not Ukrainians.
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It isn’t just a question of “safety codes”, as if it were a password on the warhead.
The “nuclear codes”, or “launch codes” are the instructions that tell a warhead how to assemble itself from something which does nothing, into a functioning warhead which is capable of detonating. If there is a mistake at any point in the sequence the 3d puzzle jams and you have to take apart the entire warhead.
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Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if the targeting data is also encrypted when fed to the missile. So if you want to change the target from Hoboken to Moscow, it’s a bit trickier than inputting a few numbers.
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And, no. Being in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program does not assure full NATO membership.
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Thank you.
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My understanding is that nobody new is allowed to join NATO unless they’ve signed treaties with all their bordering neighbors to respect their sovereignty, and are on good terms with them. Among other requirements.
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Sources? Cites? Because you’re on probation for paucity with veracity, dude.
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c4c
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I find the near unanimity of reaction by both the usual suspects and others who are normally opposed to them rather troubling in some ways. I can’t imagine the reaction is all genuine, because Russia’s been darn near this blatant before, but I don’t think it is all counterfeit either. A few scenarios suggest themselves.
1. The globalists decided to create this situation for their own ends. They use Biden to provoke Putin by offering the Ukraine NATO membership, remarking that minor incursions were of no great concern, and then doing nothing effective to deter an invasion.
2. The globalists decided to take advantage of Biden’s stumbles for their own purposes. Perhaps the EU has finally decided they’ve had enough of Putin’s shit, and figure a Ukrainian proxy war is safer and cheaper than directly fighting Russia. Perhaps the corruption running through the Ukraine is of great importance and they need it to continue, or they want resistance to be strong enough that the evidence is thoroughly destroyed in the fighting.
3. Xi wants to get the world focused on the Ukraine situation and hopefully committed militarily, to reduce the forces available to counter a ChiCom assault on Taiwan.
4. Xi wants Russia weakened enough and enough of a pariah that a ChiCom conquest of Siberia would be irresistible by Russia and accepted by the the other nations.
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Number 4 is similar to the basis of Heinlein’s Sixth Column
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I don’t have any fool-proof way to sort out all the real from the fake news. I can say that I’m hearing the same words in the clips of Ukrainians berating Russian soldiers that I heard from my Ukrainian ex-wife when she was mad at me.
I don’t think anyone expected the popular resistance by Ukrainian civilians to be as strong as it has been. Joe Biden even tried to con Zelensky into fleeing the country like Putin wanted. Whatever Machiavellian plans may have been intended, I don’t think they are working as planned.
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John 16:33, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
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And speaking of the weird going pro, check out what I just found over at Ace of Spades:
I agree with the person making the tweet: who IS responsible for this?
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It’s almost hypnotic…
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LOL! What the hell…?
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My take is that it’s a whole lot of opportunism. The Left keeps doubling down on “never let a crisis go to waste” and they’ve been having a run of good luck with that. To the extent there’s a conspiracy, it’s a tacit agreement to oppose anything that might bring an exploited crisis to an end.
The Left initially disparaged the threat of the Wuhan Virus, because they believed Trump would use it as a crisis to advance his policies. Then when they saw that they could take advantage of it for their own purposes, they did an about-face.
The Left also originally disparaged the ‘vaccine,’ partly because it had Trump cooties, but also because it threatened to end the crisis if it worked as advertised. But when the jab flopped – and it became an opportunity to keep the crisis going – they did an about-face to support the jab and jab mandates.
There’s also the disparagement of early treatment, which they saw as a threat to the crisis. When it looked like early treatment would pan out, they jumped in to actively prohibit it. It threatened to end the crisis and thus cause it to go to waste, and they couldn’t have that.
As for Ukraine, they didn’t plan for Putin to invade and get bogged down, and they probably didn’t even plan for Putin to invade. But once Putin did launch an invasion that got bogged down, it was another glorious crisis for them to double down on, because “never let a crisis go to waste” has been such a successful strategy for them.
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I’m reading various bits of news on the internet, but I’m skipping TV news except for local weather reports. My brain is just DONE.
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I don’t know what is going on.
Additionally, my mood is often ‘freaked out’.
There are a lot of alleged details. Trying to sort them into patterns results in churning, ATM.
Almost certainly the explanation includes that people are lying, and that people are malicious.
The specifics? Who is lying for what reason, and what information was exchanged in private?
Russia and the PRC seem to be calculating on Biden regime weakness. There may be private assurances, but I’m not sure that anyone sane would put any real trust in those.
A given explanation for the behavior may be incorrect. It seems very likely that the folks are aligned Crooked-Nuts, and that their own wantonly false words have opened the room for the speculation that they deem misinformation as soon as it looks too harmful to their interests.
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In December, Russia sent a couple of draft treaties to the US (technically one was directed to NATO, but it would have mostly affected the US). I looked through them a little bit ago. Amusing things that no sane American would ever agree to (they would have forced the US to basically pull all troops out of any former Warsaw Pact nation, forced the USAF and USN to stay home, and pulled our nuclear boomers back to our coasts). But the timing makes me suspect that they were intended for propaganda purposes, since much to-do is made about setting up mutual contact lines, avoiding incidents, etc…
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Our March book is The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses by Dan Carlin
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22180935-march-2022—-the-end-is-always-near
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At the beginning of this insanity, I took a look at the average age of the Diamond Princess dead (roughly – somehow, that obvious and critical piece of information wasn’t readily available). The 14 attributed deaths took place over 3+ months. Actuarial tables predict some percentage of people over 75, will, on average, die per year; 25% of that percentage, on average, dies every 3 months; there was something over a thousand such elderly people on that ship. The net result of these (heavily caveated, back of the envelope, but not unreasonable) calculations were that about 11 people out of that age group among the passengers would have died over 3 months just in the normal course of things, on average. The Coof, therefore, maybe accounted for about 3 deaths. Or, perhaps, the treatment for the Coof – intubation, panic, terror – killed about 3 people.
But I’m a terrorist, officially, for thinking this.
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Apology for not having read all the comments yet, but y’all do know this sounds like you’re playing that weird RPG from the eighties, Illuminati? In other words, y’all sound nuttier than a fruitcake.
What’s beginning to worry me is two things. One, I don’t think our hostess needs a 72 hour rest in the nearest psychiatric facility; and two, you’re starting to make sense.
Goodnight.
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80s– so before those document drops out of the USSR, right? I know they were making it over to the US in the early 90s, so….
Ever notice how a lot of the crazy stuff from the 80s wasn’t actually crazy?
There really WERE a bunch of Russian plots. Most of ’em didn’t work, but some of them, like… Seriously, “Hey, the Pope has morality. That cramps the USSR’s style. Let’s write a play that says he’s a Nazi!”
And IT FREAKING WORKED. Folks ignored tons of evidence from the time, things they’d SEEN, and adopted the insanity of “Hitler’s Pope.”
There’s a lot of plots that are solidly in the Too Crazy To Possibly Work that somehow work.
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At least Russian propagandists, and their Leftist comrades elsewhere, are consistent in this regards. Some of the Russian propagandists are claiming the purpose their invasion of Ukraine, a nation whose elected leader is Jewish, is de-Nazification. Democrats threw the label Nazi at Trump because of synagogue attacks committed by people who hated Trump. Trudeau’s recents remarks cited elsewhere in comments are another example. It just won’t end with these Commie scum until we end these Commie scum.
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Humans find excuses to be vile– go figure.
Much rather focus on actual behavior rather than labels, and specific people rather than trying to end a problem for all time.
…that this would result in pointing out that hey, Nazis only became a problem when their slightly different flavor of collectivist totalitarianism made Stalin feel second-class. (OK, more like 90th class, but relative to the Nazis.) They’re a badly done paintjob, but folks keep listening to them– and then you hear the same arguments, with the same level of evidence, from supposed opponents.
“Just do this obviously bad and extreme thing on a large, poorly defined group, it’ll fix humans so they never can do this thing you don’t like again.”
To paraphrase: “Do you want commies? because that’s how you get commies.”
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Communists must be purged from all positions of power and influence as expeditiously as possible. They don’t necessarily need to be killed, but if they insist on trying to retain power and influence, then that should be their fate.
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Ah yes, to counter the [bad group] we must directly copy their tactics, even though we have been watching them use it in the stinkin’ obvious manner of declaring anyone they don’t like to be part of whatever group.
You don’t stop people from doing stupid stuff based on irrelevant considerations– the usual “hiring and promoting on politics,” among other prog expansion tactics– by doing it yourself. You stop it by punishing in response to specific examples of the bad behavior.
You can’t simply invert a stupid idea and expect it to be good– that’s as crazy as the folks who are demanding why folks who haven’t changed their arguments and evidence in 30 years are now “siding” with wind-vane idiots.
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FRactally wrong.
One inversion of “kill everyone who abuses substance x” is “kill everyone who does not abuse substance x”.
“be very cautious and careful when curating the tests you use before killing someone” is probably the sanest rule, but it doesn’t satisfy very angry people who just want the world simplified, and are trying to find a good excuse. Well, sanest when combined with the implication that the caution and care is erring in the direction of preserving human life and welfare.
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it doesn’t satisfy very angry people who just want the world simplified, and are trying to find a good excuse
Which are the real baseline problem with any of the rules– “issues” with application.
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And this is why American conservatives keep losing. Too many either let themselves get stabbed in the back by the GOPe, or else insist on fighting by Marquis of Queensbury rules while the Communists throws out the rulebook.
Your strategy of forcing them to follow the rules presupposes functional mechanisms for doing so. The justice system is broken. Congress is corrupt and partially communist held, and some of the state legislatures are even worse. In too many states and key counties, the election process is clearly corrupt as well. There have been some moves made to try to address the electoral corruption; much effect they have will be tested in a few months.
Communism is responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths. If the elections of 2022 are just as corrupt as 2020, I see no point in continuing to pretending that the corruption can be peacefully addressed. At that point, we simply begin purging the government, media, academia, and industry of Communists by any means necessary.
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My position is somewhat GFY.
Certain needs are obvious, but they do /not/ need to be discussed on insecure channels prior to implementation.
Yes, establishment GOP go along to get alongs have been very bad.
No, “don’t talk about actionable actions on an insecure channel” is in fact a valid and legitimate position. My slight level of caution does not make me a traitor to whatever group that I am supposed to be a traitor to.
I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe me anything.
If our agendas happen to line up, that is maybe useful.
There is no reason to trust that we will vote our way out.
There is no reason to trust that we will litigate our way out.
There are also sharp bounds on our reasons to think that we will fight our way out, or kill our way out.
All these “if X action, then Y result” things are theoretical models. We have predictions, we have guesswork, but we do not really have perfect knowledge of the future.
Theoretical models are necessarily based in past events. They do not hold in cases where a ‘change in system behavior’ causes future events to have a fundamental difference from the past events. Human behavior would be a textbook example of a case where such can occur, if Academia weren’t stupidly blind to the study of such flaws.
Would be totalitarians who are disconnected from reality due to seeing everything in terms of theoretical symbols are precisely the sort of people whose behavior would tend to motivate others to change behavior in an unpredictable way.
The Honkening was one such behavior change. It wound up having effect, without being a deliberate attempt to slaughter a bunch of totalitarian fools.
On some paths, we slaughter a bunch of fools. But, we cannot theoretically exclude the possibility of paths that are relatively peaceful.
The only way we exclude the low slaughter paths is by an emotional process, because we are so stressed and angry, that we will not consider peaceful options even if potentially viable. My own personal baggage drives me, emotionally, to try to reject the emotional decision making process. So, I am unpersuadable.
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And this is why American conservatives keep losing.
When one defines “losing” as “fail to reform human nature to obey the current desires of the person speaking,” there is ALWAYS going to be an excuse.
Your strategy of forcing them to follow the rules presupposes functional mechanisms for doing so.
Functions rather well, in spite of quite a bit of damage. Better than the “remove all group” option has ever managed.
Thing is, it takes WORK.
And, worse, it may get in your way.
Of course, when your methods turn around to bite you– that never means anything. But the faintest failure of perfect function accused against the justice system is proof it must all be torn down.
/eyeroll
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Let me explain how that worked.
1. Produce play. (Or movie, or whatever.) Probably with grant money ultimately from USSR or friends.
2. Tell your hardcore people to go see the play, and to repeat various lines of talk about it. Everywhere. To everyone they know. Also have them write newspaper articles, etc. Lots of times, these people wrote under various pseudonyms, and had editor friends or paid off editors who would print everything they wrote.
3. Tell your hardcore people to do this around all the useful idiots they know, especially if they’re anti-Catholic or really really gullible. Maybe get some of these people free tickets to the play, next to your hardcore people.
4. Let simmer. Throw in more rumors and talk to keep the pot boiling.
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Most persons put some of their sanity into the people they have contact with. You can drive them partly nuts, by manipulating them through their sense of community, etc.
There are at least three mechanisms by which this is relevant to the current situation.
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Honestly, I don’t think they’re some grand, ultra-bright conspiracy.
I think it’s a “You know what would be neat” by senile *ssoles with the mental prowess of college freshmen.
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I’m not a big believer in Great Conspiracy theories – mostly because our opponents are too stupid to run a secret conspiracy. There IS an open collusion of the rabid Left. But it’s not secret.
My read of the Ukranian situation: Putin, probably egged on by the Chinese, figured that NATO was gutless enough and the Ukranians weak enough to let him snap up the eastern part of the country, make the Dniepr River the border, and install a puppet regime to run the rest as directed. Putin discovered, to his chagrin, that he had a Potemkin Army. Not nearly as effective as he thought. I’d REALLY like to get an intelligence team looking over the vehicles, to see if they were carrying full ammunition loads.
Current status: The Left is trying to use this as a political hammer, of course. The Right is trying to do much the same, but with a different slant. The Ukranians want help…and are trying to play the “lets you and him fight” game.
Pro Tip: The American military is NOT monocultural on this. The Army is salivating at the opportunity to play Cold War II games – big budgets, plus the chance to deploy to Europe. The Air Force is OK with that. The Navy is NOT OK…every dollar spent in Europe is a dollar NOT spent counter the Chinese.
Which was, of course, why the CCP was quietly egging Putin on.
Outcomes: I expect that Putin will shut off oil/gas exports to the West by the end of this week. This will impact the USA, but hit Europe much harder. Biden is too beholden to the Communist wing of the Democrats to do the sensible thing and reverse his energy policies. Putin is faced with a problem…either take the major cities by storm (meaning a very messy urban fight that negates most of his hardware advantages), or by siege (takes time). His own economy will be quietly sinking in the meantime. As will ours.
What am I doing? Why, I’m trying to figure out just how long to wait before stuffing money into the stock market! As Baron Rothschild once said, “Buy when there’s blood in the streets.” A policy that has worked quite well for me.
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I can’t recall the source, but somebody had a post with the opinion that Putin was baited into it by various Ukrainian and other nations’ actions. If true (maybe?), it could explain the convenient timing of the invasion.
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There are a lot of those opinions.
Psychotic ex model of this iteration of Russia is an explanation of where those opinions could have come from.
Russia: Look what you made me do.
Others: Hmm. Look what we made Russia do. Makes as much sense as anything else going on.
Feb., 2021, was too early for Russia to invade the Ukraine. Invasions have a lead time. To have invaded in Feb. 2021, would have needed to commit when Trump was still a possibility. So, wait for this year.
Too early this year, and it would be cold enough to be a problem. Tanks can run on roads, but a road can have limited tanks before it crumbles unless it has been specially prepared. Wait too long, the ground unfreezes and gets soft. So, the timing is set by weather.
If Putin had waited for next year, there is a chance that congressional shift might throw things back into the realm of impossible.
Left seems to be pretty tied to the IC establishment, who seems to have actually known about the invasion.
Furthermore, Left pols include a lot of rote symbol manipulators, who see themselves as cynical manipulators wrt to foreign policy. Especially in the legislature. “We push this, and it will happen that way, the same as what we saw of it happening before.” They are NOT thinking about the extent to which the more hawkish Americans have thought to themselves “After Afghanistan, I have zero trust that Biden would not turn the fight against the Krasnovians into the Gallipolli Campaign.”
PRC may have similar weather and political considerations driving things.
From the Russian or PRC perspective, what on earth is going on with US politics? Even if they have compromised officials, they do not know that those officials will retain power. We don’t know what kind of analytical framework their intelligence has developed to understand opportunities resulting from US politics. Do they see Presidential terms as most significant? Congresses? Specific officers in senior positions? They could be missing details that Americans are very aware of, or focusing on things that Americans do not know about, and would not think are important.
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Some commentary online also suggesting late winter/early spring is a bad time to attack because it’s “mud season,” in Ukraine and those heavy vehicles sFWIWink axle-deep at the first opportunity. FWIW.
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RE: Potemkin Army
Bill Rogio has a series of posts up suggesting that the Russian invasion is proceeding as more or less as intended, and explaining the Russian army’s progress. Insty had a link late yesterday.
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Last night there was one truly bizarre moment, when the FICUS went on for a bit about ‘smoke from the burn pits’ in Iraq and MaligNancy rubbed both fists together and stood up. As one YooToob commenter remarked, “Like a hungry fly”.
So that’s how I’ll always see MalgNancy from now on. A hungry fly, rubbing its front feet together before digging into a big steaming pile of crap.
———————————
Most days, I suspect that we could get a better government by picking 537 people at random. On bad days, I’m certain we’d get a better government by picking 537 people at random from lunatic asylums.
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Ah, but the asylums were all picked over by Ivy League universities and the inmates were given tenure.
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Sarah, be of cheer and read this. Mr. High has been nailing his predictions based on his data gathering algorithms. Is the following too good to be true? Possibly. I have heard inklings of like thought a few other places. The thing is, if true we will never know until after the fact ( fog of war and all that ), but I have some hope here. Anyway….
Vox Populi – Legislator Be Advised #12
Save YOUR life!
clif high
Mar 2
Comment
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Vox Populi – Legislator Be Advised #12
March 2, 2022
Legislator, it is important that you recognize these missives are NOT bullshit political pamphleteering, but are information bulletins that can SAVE YOUR LIFE by giving you knowledge to allow you to change your behavior in time.
ALL politicians are now suspected of being involved with the globalist / WEF attempt to take over humanity.
Repeating this for clarity: We, the People, SUSPECT YOU of being a duplicitous criminal working for the WEF.
Given the pace of events, you have only a very limited time to convince us to the contrary.
The Enemy of the People, the World Economic Forum, is now under continuous, daily, and increasing exposure. The attacks against the false narrative of respectability of the WEF are being successful in reducing the effectiveness of the organization, as well as destroying the ability to recover any reputation.
The attacks on the Ukraine are NOT an invasion, but rather are an anti crime effort by Russia. The incursion will end over this Spring, but the reverberations rocking the WEF will destroy the organization before the end of Summer as the Russians, and patriotic Ukranians continue to release information recovered in this policing action.
The trifecta of exposure of election fraud in the USA, the collapse of the central banking system, including the Federal Reserve Bank, and the policing action releasing information on crimes from the Ukraine, will dominate the news cycle this Spring and Summer. It is giant cake of corruption being frosted with the collapse, and exposure, of the Covid narrative.
All the records of the money laundering, and involvement in human, drug, weapons, and OTHER trafficking in the Ukraine are being recovered, and will be released to the public. AS MAY BE EXPECTED, many USA politicians are being shown to be criminally complicit with these major, capital, crimes.
The election cycle this year will be overwhelmed by the exposure, and consequences, of criminality. Many more politicians will decide to retire as the charges, arrests, and trials begin. Every action you take IS BEING scrutinized.
The collapse of the Covid narrative is nearing completion in which all the deadly effects of the Big Pharma products labeled as vaccines will be exposed. The People WILL BLAME THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT FOR POISONING THEM. Legislator, Be Advised! YOU WILL BE HELD TO ACCOUNT FOR YOUR PART IN THESE DEATHS & MAIMING.
You have very little time to recognize that the world as you knew it has gone.
Resources
Again, to repeat:
During a time of War, all actions taken by Officials will be viewed and judged against the larger background of the Conflict. Legislators and other officials, in all capacities, including supporting personnel, would be well advised to obtain, and read, the DOD Law of War Manual.
To download a PDF copy of the DOD LAW of War Manual:
https://tjaglcspublic.army.mil/documents/27431/61281/DoD+Law+of+War+Manual+-+June+2015+Updated+Dec+2016/5a02f6f8-eff3-4e79-a46f-9cd7aac74a95
Here is a link to encapsulated description of Devolution that may assist your thinking for the Immediate, and Long term future. We are at War. Every action and decision and Vote will have significant and serious consequences.
Patel Patriot’s Devolution Series
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I thought you might like the below, as food for thought on an alternate take. Mr. High has been nailing his predictions for some time throughout the last couple of years and has some degree of credibility with me.
Vox Populi – Legislator Be Advised #12
Save YOUR life!
clif high
Mar 2
Comment
Share
Vox Populi – Legislator Be Advised #12
March 2, 2022
Legislator, it is important that you recognize these missives are NOT bullshit political pamphleteering, but are information bulletins that can SAVE YOUR LIFE by giving you knowledge to allow you to change your behavior in time.
ALL politicians are now suspected of being involved with the globalist / WEF attempt to take over humanity.
Repeating this for clarity: We, the People, SUSPECT YOU of being a duplicitous criminal working for the WEF.
Given the pace of events, you have only a very limited time to convince us to the contrary.
The Enemy of the People, the World Economic Forum, is now under continuous, daily, and increasing exposure. The attacks against the false narrative of respectability of the WEF are being successful in reducing the effectiveness of the organization, as well as destroying the ability to recover any reputation.
The attacks on the Ukraine are NOT an invasion, but rather are an anti crime effort by Russia. The incursion will end over this Spring, but the reverberations rocking the WEF will destroy the organization before the end of Summer as the Russians, and patriotic Ukranians continue to release information recovered in this policing action.
The trifecta of exposure of election fraud in the USA, the collapse of the central banking system, including the Federal Reserve Bank, and the policing action releasing information on crimes from the Ukraine, will dominate the news cycle this Spring and Summer. It is giant cake of corruption being frosted with the collapse, and exposure, of the Covid narrative.
All the records of the money laundering, and involvement in human, drug, weapons, and OTHER trafficking in the Ukraine are being recovered, and will be released to the public. AS MAY BE EXPECTED, many USA politicians are being shown to be criminally complicit with these major, capital, crimes.
The election cycle this year will be overwhelmed by the exposure, and consequences, of criminality. Many more politicians will decide to retire as the charges, arrests, and trials begin. Every action you take IS BEING scrutinized.
The collapse of the Covid narrative is nearing completion in which all the deadly effects of the Big Pharma products labeled as vaccines will be exposed. The People WILL BLAME THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT FOR POISONING THEM. Legislator, Be Advised! YOU WILL BE HELD TO ACCOUNT FOR YOUR PART IN THESE DEATHS & MAIMING.
You have very little time to recognize that the world as you knew it has gone.
Resources
Again, to repeat:
During a time of War, all actions taken by Officials will be viewed and judged against the larger background of the Conflict. Legislators and other officials, in all capacities, including supporting personnel, would be well advised to obtain, and read, the DOD Law of War Manual.
To download a PDF copy of the DOD LAW of War Manual:
https://tjaglcspublic.army.mil/documents/27431/61281/DoD+Law+of+War+Manual+-+June+2015+Updated+Dec+2016/5a02f6f8-eff3-4e79-a46f-9cd7aac74a95
Here is a link to encapsulated description of Devolution that may assist your thinking for the Immediate, and Long term future. We are at War. Every action and decision and Vote will have significant and serious consequences.
Patel Patriot’s Devolution Series
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Anti. Crime.
Yeahhhh. Suuuuuure.
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But what if the many conspiracy theories (they do conflict with each other) are a key part of the sideshow? Back when the internet and Google made digging into JFK and other such theories much easier, I was surprised at how weak much of the conspiracy theory stuff was. Then along came 9/11 Truthers and it occurred to me, jokingly at first, that perhaps conspiracy theories were made up by the CIA or NSA or whatever agency in orders to discredit those who might catch on to the REAL conspiracy.
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Not to support it being from the CIA or whatever– but this is a related tactic, called DARVO. Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender.
It gets the accusations out there, so that when stuff turns up, there is a ready-made defense that it’s fake.
For an example from current events– Russia has accused the Ukraine (and others) of working on bioweapons for the US government.
It is open knowledge that the Soviets had nearly Chinese-lab level control on their major biohazards– that’s part of why a major portion of those with small pox vaccination were first responders or military members after 9/11– and that various elements of Russia are, ahem, not opposed to making easy money if there’s access to something with demand.
So, Russia is effectively saying “We would never use bio-weapons– but the guys we’re attacking are! Totally!” So when people get sick (and it’s spring, they’re moving around, kung-flu-related paranoia, they WILL be seeing a spike in illness) they can say “see? I said THOSE GUYS did it, not us!”
On a more immediate scale, the guy who constantly reports that new cashiers have been lightening the cash-drawers usually ends up caught with his hand in the till.
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It is quite possible that Russian leadership has honestly gone crazy crazy with bioweapon paranoia.
a) They were already nuts.
b) Covid lockdown and vaccination related information warfare has quite thoroughly poisoned the well.
c) Putin may ‘know’ that the Russian ‘vaccine’ is not a bioweapon. He absolutely does not have information he would trust showing that the other ‘vaccines’, or ordinary colds, are not bioweapons that will kill all the Russians.
d) Murdering everyone in a hospital would make sense in this sort of crazy world thinking.
e) Of course, ‘ordinary sane’ Putin is plenty nuts, and might murder a hospital that he knew was innocent as part of an overly complicated frame job.
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I think that you’re correct. The Russian leadership has through a combination of paranoia and hubris, gone nuts. They did demand the disbanding of NATO, and a return to the Warsaw Pact order of things after all. Were I commanding, oh I don’t know, a squadron of A10’s or F15E’s and I had a 41 mile long Russian attack convoy bogged down on a road running out of patrol because their corrupt procurement officers bought knock off Chinese tires and their lesders decided to invade during the muddy season I might fancy my chances. Those Chinese knockoff tires have to be encouraging too. Would you fancy being a Chinese infantryman making an opposed landing on a Chinese made boat backed by Chinese made missles?
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OK just saw this; add this little gem to the working theory presented in my above post.
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Even a broken clock…
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Support from the Russians is the LAST thing Trump needs. The Democrats spent 5 years lying about links between Trump and Russia, this will just set them all off again.
———————————
They’re the Experts! They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are.
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It is probably being deliberately done for that express purpose.
The Russians don’t care about the actual legitimacy of US political outcomes.
They 1) want weakness 2) want strife 3) are salty about the Magnitsky Act.
Weak Biden? Fine with them, they will take advantage.
They want a civil war in the US, they have been among those fanning on the race war that never ignited, and want the US split up into separate entities.
From their perspective, encouraging the fraud narrative implicates Trump in Democrat eyes, maybe radicalizes Republican voters, and maybe peels off some folks to act as pro-Russia apologists once the ramifications of Putin being an atrocitarian come out via Russian army behavior.
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He spent most of his diplomatic training in the Siberian troll factories?
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Sarah – you are not the only one baffled why our fellow citizens cannot see the obvious.
I am a board-certified academic physician. When there 7 cases reported in the US i told a colleague “This won’t be over until we all get it and reach herd immunity.” He agreed.
Masks are worse than useless. Frequently washing your hands and staying six feet from symptomatic people are the best ways to avoid any viral infection.
Lockdowns and mandates were NEVER about public health. They killed more people that the SARS-COV-2 virus (the illness is called COVID-19, not the virus).
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It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy when it’s a consensus.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-underestimate-willingness-phds-use-fake-data
“Around one in 12 postgraduate researchers would publish fraudulent results if it helped them get ahead, says study”
And those were the ones who admitted it.
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a) soft sciences
b) this isn’t the wider political issue. The studies apparently showed students a dataset with detectable buggering, and asked them if they would proceed with publication.
c) Of course the academic leaders purport to expect zero percent willingness to fraud. Their whole job is pretending that they haven’t contributed to the ruin of academia.
d) The issue here is that 1) graduate school and academia are deeply broken industries 2) ethics in a graduate student is built on a foundation of early childhood training, largely invisible to bureaucracies, and all the bureaucracy is oriented around the visible stuff, from other parts of the student’s life, assuming that is all that matters.
e) This cluster intersects with the cluster that you talk about, but is not inherently the same phenomena. The cluster you talk about, is largely that Marxists are not inherently able to peacefully coexist with Jews and Christians. This cluster has a lot to do with people who have been led to emotionally invest too much in academic progress, and don’t go do something else when they hit the limits of their ability and interest.
f) It should have gone without saying, before the latest meta research, that no academic is owed unconditional trust by everyone. i) The point of academia, theoretically, is a tedious debating society that can orient to truth, if you have truthful people in it. ii) ‘respect my authoriteh’ is anti-scholarship. (Real scholarship, not the various wannabe counterfeits) iii) the ‘not properly trained’ argument for excluding laymen from the debate is nullified by the degree to which the number and structure of the fields has been screwed up. Nobody is properly trained, nobody is a qualified expert, and the whole thing has kinda become a comprehensive argumentum ad cartmann. The layman has a perfect right to conclude that trusting academia is much more trouble than it can possible be worth.
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Faked results that support the authorities’ prejudices are acceptable. Truth that contradicts them is unacceptable. That corruption runs all through academia. I’ve got two things to say about that:
“If reality doesn’t conform to your theories, it’s not the universe that’s wrong.”
and
“Politics perverts science. Scientists are rewarded not for finding and reporting the truth, but for telling those in charge of doling out the money whatever they want to hear. Play the approved tune and you get government grants, you get consulting fees, you get published. Make the wrong waves, and you don’t. Such measures do not produce good science, or good scientists.”
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THIS.
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Evidence for the ower of distraction. A 1A group sent me an e -mail in which they are properly distrssed at Russian government supression of free speech, that is, arresting anti-war protesters.
No mention of this: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/vivek-calls-for-a-new-mccarthyism?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNDQ2NjMzNSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDk3MDEzMjQsIl8iOiJtdk01TCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NjM3NjIxMywiZXhwIjoxNjQ2Mzc5ODEzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzIzOTE0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.ju55k-LJGjLQqJr4kmrYBhS4JYOOtgYUFVQRwW7LGSw&s=r
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