NATO fully abides by the NATO-Russia Founding Act. In response to Russia's illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea and military build-up close to Alliance borders, NATO has deployed four multinational battlegroups – around 4,500 troops – to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland.
These forces are rotational, defensive, and well below any reasonable definition of "substantial combat forces." There has been no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of eastern Allies. In fact, total force levels across the Alliance have substantially reduced since the end of the Cold War.
By signing the NATO-Russia Founding Act, Russia pledged not to threaten or use force against NATO Allies and any other state. It has broken this commitment with the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, the territory of a sovereign state. Russia also continues to support militants in eastern Ukraine.
The US is a de facto one-party state where the ideology of national security is sacrosanct, unsustainable debt props up the empire, and the primary business is war.
“Let’s Make a Deal,” an original work by Mr. Fish.
By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost
When all else fails, when you are clueless about how to halt a 7.5% inflation rate, when your Build Back Better bill is gutted, when you renege on your promise to raise the minimum wage or forgive student debt, when you can’t halt the Republican suppression of voting rights, when you have no idea how to handle the pandemic which has claimed 900,000 lives – 16% of the world’s total deaths although we are less than 5% of the world’s population – when the stock market fluctuates on wild rollercoaster rides of highs and lows, when what little help the government offered to the labor force — half of whom, 80 million, experienced a period of unemployment last year — sees the termination of the extended unemployment benefits, rental assistance, forbearance for student loans, emergency checks, the moratorium on evictions and expansion of the child tax credits, when you watch passively as the ecocide gathers momentum, then you must make the public afraid of enemies, foreign and domestic. You must manufacture an existential threat. Terrorists at home. Russians and Chinese abroad. Expand state power in the name of national security. Beat the drums of war. War is the antidote to divert public attention from government corruption and incompetence. No one plays the game better than the Democratic Party. The Democrats, as journalist and co-founder of Black Agenda Report Glen Ford, said, are not the lesser evil. They are the more effective evil.
The US, burdened by de facto tax boycotts by the rich and corporations, is sinking in debt, the highest in our history. The US government budget deficit was $2.77 trillion for the 2021 budget year that ended September 30, the second highest annual deficit on record. It was exceeded only by the $3.13 trillion deficit for 2020. Total US national total debt is over $30 trillion. Household debt grew by $1 trillion last year. The total debt balance in our government Ponzi scheme is now $1.4 trillion higher than it was at the end of 2019. Our wars are waged on borrowed money. The Watson Institute at Brown University estimates that interest payments on the military debt could be over $6.5 trillion by the 2050s. None of this debt is sustainable.
At the same time, the US is facing the ascendency of China, whose economy is projected to overtake the US economy by the end of the decade. Washington’s slew of desperate financial tricks – flooding the global market with new dollars and lowering interest rates to near-zero – staved off major depressions after the 2000 dot.com crash, 9/11, and the 2008 global financial meltdown. The cheap interest rates led corporations and banks to borrow massively from the Federal Reserve, often to paper over shortfalls and bad investments. The result is that US businesses are deeper in debt than at any time in US history. Added to this morass is rising inflation, caused by businesses that have increased prices in a desperate effort to make up for lost revenue from supply chain shortages and rising shipping costs, the economic downturn, and the slight wage increases triggered by the pandemic. This inflation has forced the Fed to curtail the growth of the money supply and raise interest rates, which then pushes corporations to further raise prices. The desperate measures to stave off an economic crisis are self-defeating. The bag of tricks is empty. Massive defaults on mortgages, student loans, credit cards, household debt, car debt, and other loans in the United States is probably inevitable. With no short-term mechanisms left to paper over the disaster, it will usher in a prolonged depression.
An economic crisis means a political crisis. And a political crisis is traditionally solved by war against enemies inside and outside the nation. The Democrats are as guilty of this as the Republicans. Wars can get started by Democrats, such as Harry S. Truman in Korea or John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, and perpetuated by Republicans. Or they can get started by Republicans, such as George W. Bush, and perpetuated by Democrats such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Bill Clinton, without declaring war, imposed punishing sanctions on Iraq and authorized the Navy and the Air Force to carry out tens of thousands of sorties against the country, dropping thousands of bombs and launching hundreds of missiles. With its $768 billion military budget, the war industry, along with the expansion of Homeland Security, the FBI, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the National Security Agency, is a bipartisan project. The handful of national political leaders, such as Henry Wallace in 1948 and George McGovern in 1972, who dared to challenge the war machine, were ruthlessly hounded into political oblivion by the leaders of both parties.
Biden’s bellicose rhetoric towards China and especially Russia, more strident than that of the Trump administration, has been accompanied by the formation of new security alliances such as those with India, Japan, Australia, and Great Britain in the Indo-Pacific. US aggression has, ironically, pushed China and Russia into a forced marriage, something the architects of the Cold War, including Nixon and Kissinger with their opening to China in 1971, worked very hard to avoid. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, after meeting recently in Beijing, issued a 5,300-word statement that condemned NATO expansion in eastern Europe, denounced the formation of security blocs in the Asia Pacific region, and criticized the AUKUS trilateral security pact between the US, Great Britain, and Australia. They also vowed to thwart “color revolutions” and strengthen “back-to-back” strategic coordination.
Warmongering by the Democrats always comes wrapped in the mantle of democracy, freedom, and human rights, making Democrats the more effective salespeople for war. Democrats eagerly lined up behind George W. Bush during the calls to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of “humanitarian intervention” and “liberating” the women of Afghanistan, who would spend the next two decades living in terror, burying family members, at times their children. Even when Democrats, including Barack Obama, criticized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while running for office, they steadfastly voted to fund the wars to “support our troops” once elected. Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), says “an assault on Ukraine is an assault on democracy,” the same argument Democrats clung to a half-century ago while launching and expanding the disastrous war in Vietnam.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, is currently crafting legislation he proudly calls “the mother of all sanctions bill.” The bill led in the House by Gregory Meeks of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also a Democrat, demands that the administration “not cede to the demands of the Russian Federation regarding NATO membership or expansion.” NATO expansion to Ukraine along Russia’s borders is the central issue for Moscow. Removing this for discussion obliterates a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Sanctions under the legislation can be imposed for any act, no matter how minor, deemed by Ukraine to be hostile. The sanctions cannot be lifted until an agreement is reached between the government of Ukraine and Russia, meaning Ukraine would be granted the authority to determine when the US sanctions will end. The proposed sanctions, which target Russian banks, the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, state-owned enterprises, and leading members of the government and military, including President Vladimir Putin, also calls for blocking Russia from SWIFT, the international financial transaction system that uses the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
“The legislation would grant at least $500 million in foreign military assistance to Ukraine, in addition to the $200 million in new assistance sent over the last month,” writes Marcus Stanley. “This makes Ukraine the third leading recipient of US military assistance globally, after Israel and Egypt. While it wouldn’t come close to giving Ukraine the ability to combat Russia on its own, it may come with US military advisors that would increase the danger the US would be drawn into a conflict. The bill also takes steps to directly involve countries bordering Russia in negotiations to end the crisis, which would make it much more difficult to reach an agreement.”
While cutting Russia off from SWIFT will be catastrophic, at least in the short term, for the Russian economy, pushing Russia into the arms of China to create an alternative global financial system that no longer relies on the US dollar will cripple the American empire. Once the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, the dollar will precipitously drop in value, perhaps as much as by two-thirds, as the pound sterling did when the British currency was abandoned as the world’s reserve currency in the 1950s. Treasury bonds used to finance America’s military-based balance-of-payments deficit, and the ballooning government budget deficit will no longer be attractive investments for countries such as China. The nearly 800 US military outposts abroad, sustained by debt – the Chinese have lent an estimated $1 trillion to the US on which they collect hefty interest – will dramatically shrink in number. Meanwhile, the massive US interest payments, at least in part, will continue to fund the Chinese military.
The US domination of the world economy, after 75 years, is over. It is not coming back. We manufacture little, short of weapons. Our economy is a mirage build on unsustainable levels of debt. The pillage orchestrated by the capitalist elites and corporations has hollowed the country out from the inside, leaving the infrastructure decayed, democratic institutions moribund, and at least half the population struggling at subsistence level. The two ruling parties, puppets for the ruling oligarchs, refuse to curb the rapacious appetites of the war industry and the rich, accelerating the crisis. That the rage of the dispossessed is legitimate, even if it is expressed in inappropriate ways, is never acknowledged by the Democrats. Who were instrumental in pushing through: the trade deals, deindustrialization, tax loopholes for the rich, deficit spending, endless wars, and austerity programs that have created a crisis. Instead of shooting the messenger, the Biden administration is targeting Trump supporters and winning draconian sentences for those who stormed the capital on January 6. Biden’s Justice Department has formed a domestic terrorism unit to focus on extremists, and Democrats have been behind a series of moves to de-platform and censor their right-wing critics.
The belief that the Democratic Party offers an alternative to militarism is, as Samuel Johnson said, the triumph of hope over experience. The disputes with Republicans are largely political theater, often centered around the absurd or the trivial. On the substantive issues, there is no difference within the ruling class. The Democrats, like the Republicans, embrace the fantasy that, even as the country stands on the brink of insolvency, a war industry that has orchestrated debacle after debacle, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, is going to restore lost American global hegemony. Empires, as Reinhold Niebuhr observed, eventually “destroy themselves in the effort to prove that they are indestructible.” The self-delusion of military invincibility is the scourge that brought down the American empire, as it brought down past empires.
We live in a one-party state. The ideology of national security is sacrosanct. The cult of secrecy, justified in the name of protecting us from our enemies, is a smokescreen to hide from the public the inner workings of power and manipulate public perceptions. The Democratic courtiers and advisers that surround any Democratic presidential candidate – the retired generals and diplomats, the former national security advisers, the Wall Street economists, the lobbyists, and the apparatchiks from past administrations – do not want to curb the power of the imperial presidency. They do not want to restore the system of checks and balances. They do not want to challenge the military or the national security state. They are the system. They want to move back into the White House to wield its awful force. And now, with Joe Biden, that is where they are.
Chris HedgesChris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America.
-Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court -Stock Market reached an all-time high -More than 7 million jobs created -Unemployment rate at a 17-year low -Gutted Obama-era regulations -Ended the war on coal -Promoted buying and hiring American -Investment from major businesses (Foxconn, Toyota, Ford, and others) Reduced illegal immigration -Changed rules of engagement against ISIS -Defeated ISIS -Sanctioned Iran over missile program -Responded to Syria's use of chemical weapons -Renegotiating NAFTA -Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -Removed The United States out of the Paris Accord -Signed an Executive Order to promote energy independence and economic growth -Signed Executive Order for religious freedom -Authorized the construction of the Keystone Pipeline -Food Stamp use the lowest level in 7 years -Reduced White House payroll -Donating Presidential Salary
Now let's take at Biden's record:
1. Afghanistan was a disaster.Thousands of Americans and allies left behind to be tortured and killed. 2. Millions of illegals carrying covid. Continuing the pandemic and killing people. 3. Gas is going thru the roof. We were energy independent and oil was $55 barrel, now Biden gets oil from the mid-east and it's $96 a barrel. 4. Bidens Covid's response has resulted in more death than Trump! and Biden had the vaccine! 5. Inflation is highest in 40 years. Since Jimmy Carter. 6. Shelves are empty. There is an ongoing shipping disaster of Bidens making. 7. Drug crisis fueled by open border policy. Since Biden doesn't watch the border fentanyl has become the number one killer of Americans. More than Covid. 8. Murder rate highest in 25 years. 9. Foreign policy: a. Russia's ready to go to war 200,000 troops on the border. b. N. Korea shooting missiles again c. China is shoving Taiwan around.
Yeah, you picked a scumbag, His kids are dope addicts. He could be you.
*The hidden question is always why are the world leaders doing this???*
The 800 lb gorilla in the room is because they are trying to crush the populations so the world's elite can form a One World Order, The wet dreams of maniacs and dictators.
"That sounds insane?"Then why is it suddenly, the western countries have a substantial unwanted rush of immigrants with no national spirit, allowed in despite their significant national population's resistance?
Why is suddenly Trudeau violently cracking down on peaceful protestors with beatings and (actual) fascistic weapons ie Trudeau and the bankers to break truckers? President Macron and the beatings that the French have suffered at his hands.
Western countries have started to use actual fascistic (i.e., Large corporations doing the government will.) Google & Biden admin. to censor information.
Australia having isolation "camps" built for whoever the government wants to put in them? Shades of Buchenwald.
It sounds like what the Nazis did to the French and Jews two generations ago, Exactly.
Klaus Schwab Founder of this One Work Order organization, the "World Economic Forum". which these One World leaders belong to Biden, Macron, Merkel, and other leaders also leading politicians and top financial people, huge banks and the central bankers, dictators, and Monarchs all belong to this organization
Klaus Schwab is as Nazi a sounding German as you ever want to hear.
Listen: *This is Klaus Schwab on Trudeau's loyalty to the World Economic Forum & not to the Canadian people* Have a listen: https://truthcomestolight.com/the-test-for-klaus-schwab-and-the-world-economic-forum/
*Sherlock Holmes said,"When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth*.
Barry Soetoro is behind this; Biden is just his sock puppet. Any sane person can see that Biden is in no shape to run the country.
Barry is an old time Commie, He wants to destroy America. To him it's a white racist country.
In college he took classes with Cloward & Piven who believed the way to destroy America was overload it's systems. Isn't that what Obama is doing with Biden, the sock puppet? What has Biden done to help America? Nothing. What has he done to hurt America? Everything.
1. Afghanistan was a disaster. Arming an entire terrorist nation with the latest modern arms. Afghanistan is ranked 75 of 140 out of the countries considered for the annual GFP review. 2. Millions of illegals carrying covid . The millions of immigrant coming in will overload our welfare.& keeping our hospital overloaded. 3. Gas is going thru the roof. Overloading your wallet. 4. Bidens Covid's response has resulted in more death than Trump! and Biden had the vaccine! Biden's Obama's killing us. The just found an email on Jan 2020 that ivermectin was a curative. Biden Obama has deliberately murdered thousands of Americans. Don't you think Obama not pleased! 5. Inflation is highest in 40 years. Overloading the system with to much cash causes inflation. 6. Shelves are empty. There is an ongoing shipping disaster of Bidens making. Biden Obama has overloaded the shipping supply with strict Covid mandates 7. Drug crisis fueled by open border policy. Biden/Obama keeps them open killing young Americans. 8. Murder rate highest in 25 years. 9. Foreign policy: a. Russia's on the march. 100,000 troops on the border. Biden is about to get us in another "Forever war" b. N. Korea shooting missiles again c. China is shoving Taiwan around. None of this existed a year ago under Trump. We at war within and without. I don't see much of a way out. Most people are completely in the dark, as cows lead to slaughter.
'We've known how to cure COVID since about March of 2020': Dr. Robert Malone
"This is a clear pivot consequent to their horrible polling numbers," Malone said, referring to the recent scramble by Democratic governors to lift COVID-19 mandates.
COVID-19 mask mandates were never necessary, says Dr. Robert Malone.
"We've known how to cure COVID since about March of 2020," the mRNA vaccine pioneer-turned-critic told "Just the News, Not Noise" TV show cohosts John Solomon and Amanda Head.
The sudden scramble two years later by Democratic governors to lift mask mandates "is a clear pivot consequent to their horrible polling numbers," Malone said. "It's exactly what I predicted when people were asking me, 'How will we know when this thing is over?' I've said, 'Well, you'll know it because they'll all start giving awards to each other and claiming that they're the ones that are responsible for curing it.'"
Malone also discussed explosive new data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) regarding possible COVID vaccine side effects, which three military medical whistleblowers recently came forward with when they saw a significant increase in common vaccine injuries during 2021.
"DMED was something that Lt. Col. Theresa Long and some of her colleagues queried when they were busy doing diligence to try to understand what they were seeing with their own warfighter communities that they were sworn to protect as physicians," Malone explained.
"And they were seeing signals that were unusual, and so they consulted the DMED database and were shocked to find enormous increases in 2021, when the vaccine mandates were implemented to the military, compared to 2020 in a wide variety of diseases, including cancers, things related to reproduction and female reproductive health."
Malone was asked about recently released emails exposing a plan by three top federal public health officials to discredit the anti-lockdown epidemiologists behind the Great Barrington Declaration. The exchange showed the three — then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, and NIAID Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects Dr. Clifford Lane — coordinating "a quick and devastating takedown" of the premises of the declaration, which espouses "focused protection," a mitigation strategy prioritizing the most vulnerable populations.
"[T]hey slandered and defamed those three as 'fringe' epidemiologists, but they happen to be full professors at the obscure universities Oxford, Stanford and Harvard, I believe," Malone said sarcastically, referring to Sunetra Gupta, Ph.D., Jay Bhattacharya, MD, Ph.D., and Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., respectively.
"And please note that neither Dr. Fauci nor Dr. Collins nor Dr. Lane have any formal training in epidemiology," Malone added.
Malone also reacted to the news that the South African doctor who discovered the Omicron variant said she was pressured not to call the new COVID variant a "mild" illness in public.
"So what we're looking at," he said, "is really quite shocking: It runs across all of health care, it runs all the way through Health and Human Services, it runs across all the Western nations — there seems to be some odd collusion, and that has been focused on amplifying the fear and suppressing any counter-narrative."
