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Ex NATO Chief’s Latest Hair Brain Plan for Ukraine? Can’t Make This S*** Up

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2023

NATO’s 75th birthday is coming around soon, with celebrations planned for July of next year in Washington. Yet the organisation has a bit of a problem with the party and celebrations.

Martin Jay

Rasmussen seems to think he has a plan with giving Ukraine a token NATO membership, overlooking the somewhat incongruous fact that it was the threat of Ukraine becoming a NATO member which kicked things off the first place.

When people reach the ripe old age of 75, there is usually a tendency to slow down and take things easier; often there’s a lack of cohesion, sentences often aren’t completed, delusion and incompetence become more noticeable if not plain idiocy on a scale not previously seen. In some cases, relatives might even talk of assisted suicide to put the old bugger out of his misery, with some even as going as far to talk about being “brain dead”.

NATO’s 75th birthday is coming around soon, with celebrations planned for July of next year in Washington. Yet the organisation has a bit of a problem with the party and celebrations. What’s there to celebrate with Ukraine more or less a war that even die-hard Republicans in America admit is a war which cannot be won? 75 years old, NATO is looking more and more like an outdated institution which, if anything, is going to fall on its sword at some point when the world wakes up and realises what a con it is.

But the old git has to be kept alive at all costs, largely to keep up appearances for new members and also to protect the reputations of western leaders who have staked theirs on the war in Ukraine being a righteous win.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a lucky man. The former NATO chief is fortunate enough to actually not look as stupid as he really is and is at a period in his so-called career where he can say patently idiotic things and it doesn’t matter. But his latest idea – to give Ukraine some kind of token, half-cocked NATO membership – is braindead nonsense on a whole new scale which we haven’t seen before.

NATO Neanderthals are desperate to find a solution in Ukraine so they can have their party in July and not look completely stupid while they watch the fireworks and do the idiotic arms-crossed hand shakes. You know the sort of thing.

Ukraine has to be fixed. The war has to be presented to a gullible western audience as victory, sort of, to NATO. Given that the whole thing is over and the Ukrainian army is such a shower of shite, one wonders how NATO folk are going to pull off such a stunt.

Rasmussen seems to think he has a plan with giving Ukraine a token NATO membership, overlooking the somewhat incongruous fact that it was the threat of Ukraine becoming a NATO member which kicked things off the first place. His thinking – don’t laugh – is that if Ukraine was in NATO then Russia would be too afraid to attack it. That is to say, Russia, which controls about a third of the country in the east would be reluctant to attack the western part currently under control of Ukrainian army. And this move would show Russia that Ukraine can join NATO. According to the Guardian, the “former secretary general says partial membership would warn Russia it cannot stop Ukraine joining the alliance”.

It seems an incredibly juvenile gesture, but the logic behind the thinking is fatally flawed for at least four key reasons, in my view.

  1. The idea just writes off all of the territory that Russia has taken and expects Zelensky to swallow this, despite the Ukrainian president stating on many occasions this is not negotiable.
  2. Russia would not be afraid to strike western Ukraine simply because the country was sort of in NATO. The bigger worry here is the escalation from NATO would put it under the spotlight to retaliate, which it wouldn’t.
  3. NATO membership comes with a few rules, namely only democracies get to join the club. NATO does not do state building and so allowing one of the most corrupt countries in the world into its elite club might lower the bar for other countries like Bosnia or Georgia who are candidate members. It can’t take in gangsters and not expect its public image to slip even further.
  4. Allowing Ukraine in, takes away a key – if not the only – bargaining chip the west has, which is to guarantee to Putin that Ukraine won’t join NATO. With Ukraine in NATO and representing an even bigger threat, it raises the stakes even higher and gives Russia no real reason not to invade.

Like absolutely everything that NATO and the Biden administration has done since day one of the Russian invasion, this is yet another gross miscalculation on the part of NATO elites. Are they banking on Joe Biden not even knowing which country he is in, being unable to even say one word through his rapidly developing senility by the time July comes around? Or that Zelensky himself is the real problem as he wouldn’t ever accept giving up the Donbas or Crimea and so therefore has to be replaced?

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NATO Gifts India Russia’s Whiskey Market on a Platter

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2023

If the Indians sat down and decided to make world class porridge, then of course it would be child’s play for them. Just as it is child’s play for the Indians to make whiskey.

Declan Hayes

Although NATO has essentially delivered Russia’s whiskey market to India on a platter, the damage will not stop there as Indian producers of Amrut and Paul John, together with their Russian and Chinese partners, have been given a golden opportunity to use Russia to go after the premium whiskey market, to replace top quality brands like Jameson, Bushmills, and Glenfiddich with their own no less perfect offerings.

A recent Russia Today news story about Russia’s whiskey market NATO’s sanctions stop me linking to puts me in mind of a favourite old joke, as well as an article on Indian tourism I read very many moons ago.

The joke is that Irish monks taught the Scots how to make whiskey 1500 years ago but that the Scots are still learning. Although there is much truth in that, as regards the Russian whiskey market, the joke is now very much not only on both the Scots and the Irish but also on the Americans who previously sold hundreds of thousands of litres of their whiskies to the Russkies before this latest trade war in support of the Kiev Nazis began.

As regards India, I had been reading the travel supplement in one of the upmarket Sunday broadsheets, when I was told of some hotel or other in the Himalayan foothills that made the best porridge in India. Now, as the Irish, as well as the Scots, are as much known for their porridge as for their whiskey, that struck me as a bit presumptuous before I got down to think about it. If the Indians sat down and decided to make world class porridge, then of course it would be child’s play for them.

Just as it is child’s play for the Indians to make whiskey. Not only are the Indians the world’s third largest whiskey producers but some of their products are, by all accounts, quite good. I speak here as an Irish purist, who regards Irish whiskey, along with some Scottish single malts, as the world’s best and who regards most Scottish whiskey as little more than overpriced cough mixture, fit only for putting into Irish coffees for gullible tourists. American whiskies you can keep and the Polish, Japanese, Canadian, Mexican and South East Asian whiskies I have sampled in my time have, shall we say, left a lot to be desired. Not quite up there with a Bushmills Black in front of a blazing winter’s turf fire.

Though tastes do differ, the fact is that Irish whiskies and their Scottish and American near equivalents do enjoy a brand premium. And this stupid Russian turbulence shows just how vulnerable to Indian and Chinese attack that premium is.

It is not as if we were not down this road before. During the 1930s’ economic war between Britain and Ireland, Irish whiskey was side-lined so much that many undiscerning drinkers now refer to whiskey as Scotch, not knowing that whiskey is an Irish drink and that the quality of Scotch whiskey ranges from the smoothly sublime to rot gut that is little better than paint remover.

Although the Koreans, for example, down Scotch whiskey by the gallon, they tend to go for brand names like Johnny Walker rather than the true, top shelf stuff that is distilled in Scotland’s western islands. To understand the difference in quality, just ask a German beer drinker what he thinks of Heineken or any similar Dutch excuse for beer.

Although Irish mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor made a tidy packet developing and then on-selling his own Proper No Twelve brand of whiskey, his was a market niche of no great consequence to the overall whiskey market. This Russian madness is in a very different league as it threatens to leave the West with nothing but niche markets as India, China and other competitors steam-roll their way to global dominance.

NATO’s sanctions have allowed China, rather than Ireland, Japan or Scotland, to now sell over 400,000 litres of whiskey a year to Russia. That is serious money NATO is flushing down the toilet.

And then there are the Indians, who are now selling a quarter of a million litres of whiskey a year to the Russians, who have seen a staggering 36 new local brands emerge to cater to their needs.

As if that was not bad enough for NATO’s Irish and Scottish lapdogs, Indian company Allied Blenders & Distillers (ABD), which produces Officer’s Choice, the world’s third-most-popular whiskey, has now got the Russian whiskey market firmly in its cross hairs, with Russian vodka manufacturer Alcohol Siberian Group (ASG) lined up to be ABD’s sole distributor.

India produces 60% of the world’s (loosely defined) whiskey, with ABD already being firmly established in more than 20 countries. Although ABD’s revenue currently stands at a relatively modest $765 million, this can be expected to grow as NATO continues to shoot its own producers in the foot with these stupid sanctions and needless trade wars.

Although NATO has essentially delivered Russia’s whiskey market to India on a platter, the damage will not stop there as Indian producers of Amrut and Paul John, together with their Russian and Chinese partners, have been given a golden opportunity to use Russia to go after the premium whiskey market, to replace top quality brands like Jameson, Bushmills, and Glenfiddich with their own no less perfect offerings.

See the rest here

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Full-blown revolution in Ireland? Overthrow of government?

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2023

I met Carlin during the intermission of one of his shows in San Diego. It was near the end of his career and his life. He was disappointed in the bland reaction of the audience that night. I think he might have started to realize that too many of his people were blasted out on meds and other drugs, and were generally opting for passivity as a lifestyle.

Jon Rappoport

Or just a few days of protest over an Algerian immigrant stabbing Irish children outside a school?

Things could explode in massive fury, because the government is trying to push through a new Hate Speech law.

It contains the usual garble about incitement to violence, hatred directed toward special groups; the new wrinkle makes it a crime to even POSSESS such hate material.

If my experience as a kid with Irish kids is still relevant, half of Ireland could wind up in jail if this law passes. Those kids were masters of the insult. They practiced and cultivated it. For them, it was an art form.

If the law passes, I think the government is going to have to outlaw booze. Which is often the initiator of “hate speech.”

I assume the Irish government itself would be one of the special groups—hate speech directed at it would qualify as a crime. If so, you may as well not refer to Ireland as a nation anymore.

If that Irish lad George Carlin were still alive, I think he would have much to say about this new law.

“But they take it too far, they take themselves too seriously, they exaggerate. They want me to call that thing in the street a ‘person-hole cover;’ I think that’s taking it a little bit too far.

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‘But who are the biggest liars?’ Congress Moves to Expel George Santos

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2023

The famous Goering quote in the first 4 minutes.

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“Mr. President, Tap The Brakes”: 3,900 Auto Dealers Warn EV Demand Crumbling

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2023

Another government central planning fail. The solution will no doubt be throw more of your money at it.

By Tyler Durden

The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers said

Zero Hedge

Data from Bankrate indicates that interest rates for new auto loans with a 60-month term have reached their highest point since the Dot Com bust era. Additionally, the soaring prices of new electric vehicles pose a significant affordability challenge for the average working-class American. Beyond affordability issues, consumer interest in EVs is also waning. This sentiment is echoed by 3,900 auto dealers who have written to President Biden, urging his administration to reconsider the pace of EV mandates, citing a severe decline in demand for these vehicles.

”Currently, there are many excellent battery electric vehicles available for consumers to purchase. These vehicles are ideal for many people, and we believe their appeal will grow over time. The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers said.

They said 2022 was a year of “hope and hype about EVs” but has morphed into a bust cycle as “supply of unsold BEVs is surging, as they are not selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships — even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives.”

They warned: “Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots which is our best indicator of customer demand in the marketplace.”

According to Bankrate data, this may be because new auto loans with 60-month terms have soared from around 3.5% to 7.78% in a very short period – we call this an interest rate shock. Current rates are at levels not seen since the second half of 2001.

See the rest here

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The UN Wants Americans To Cut Back On Eating Meat? — Fire Up The Grill!

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2023

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

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The Deadly Pattern

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2023

Had I never visited and lived among the oppressed as well as the oppressors, I certainly would be on the side of the Israelis. Just look at what they’ve done with their land and look at what the Palestinians have accomplished: zero. And yet, I have lived there and have seen what is going on with my own eyes and cannot ignore what I’ve seen and lived.

Taki

The question was a valid one: “How could you, a conservative and a gentleman, be for them?” The man is an acquaintance of long standing, also a gent, so I bothered to explain: “Because I’ve been there and have seen what’s going on up close.”

Needless to say, it was the Middle East we were talking about, and my sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to tiny Israel surrounded by hostile Arab nations. I was based in Amman back in 1969 and during “Black September” one year later, when King Hussein destroyed the PLO effort to take over his country. I had visited the Palestinian refugee camps for those evicted by Israeli settlers during the founding of Israel in 1948. I then covered the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and have visited many more such camps in Lebanon since then. All I can say is once you’ve seen the misery of life in those camps, it takes a heart of stone to ignore them.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s David Schulman, a Hebrew professor at an Israeli university, writing in The New York Review of Books: “It is a regime of state terror whose raison d’être is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners. I have seen this system in operation over the course of the past twenty odd years.”

“Suffice it to say that Hamas knew very well that in its counterattack Israel would lose the PR battle.”

Mind you, pro-Israelis might immediately think, “There goes yet another self-loathing Jew.” I don’t know Schulman, but I’ve met a lot of Israelis who not only agree with him, but are adamant that Israel under Netanyahu has become an occupying power bent on capturing the whole West Bank. One thing is for sure, and I will get to the Hamas outrage and the Israeli reaction later on: To Palestinians living under the occupation over the past several years, state violence against them has escalated dramatically.

The question was a valid one: “How could you, a conservative and a gentleman, be for them?” The man is an acquaintance of long standing, also a gent, so I bothered to explain: “Because I’ve been there and have seen what’s going on up close.”

Needless to say, it was the Middle East we were talking about, and my sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to tiny Israel surrounded by hostile Arab nations. I was based in Amman back in 1969 and during “Black September” one year later, when King Hussein destroyed the PLO effort to take over his country. I had visited the Palestinian refugee camps for those evicted by Israeli settlers during the founding of Israel in 1948. I then covered the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and have visited many more such camps in Lebanon since then. All I can say is once you’ve seen the misery of life in those camps, it takes a heart of stone to ignore them.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s David Schulman, a Hebrew professor at an Israeli university, writing in The New York Review of Books: “It is a regime of state terror whose raison d’être is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners. I have seen this system in operation over the course of the past twenty odd years.”

“Suffice it to say that Hamas knew very well that in its counterattack Israel would lose the PR battle.”

Mind you, pro-Israelis might immediately think, “There goes yet another self-loathing Jew.” I don’t know Schulman, but I’ve met a lot of Israelis who not only agree with him, but are adamant that Israel under Netanyahu has become an occupying power bent on capturing the whole West Bank. One thing is for sure, and I will get to the Hamas outrage and the Israeli reaction later on: To Palestinians living under the occupation over the past several years, state violence against them has escalated dramatically.

The question was a valid one: “How could you, a conservative and a gentleman, be for them?” The man is an acquaintance of long standing, also a gent, so I bothered to explain: “Because I’ve been there and have seen what’s going on up close.”

Needless to say, it was the Middle East we were talking about, and my sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to tiny Israel surrounded by hostile Arab nations. I was based in Amman back in 1969 and during “Black September” one year later, when King Hussein destroyed the PLO effort to take over his country. I had visited the Palestinian refugee camps for those evicted by Israeli settlers during the founding of Israel in 1948. I then covered the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and have visited many more such camps in Lebanon since then. All I can say is once you’ve seen the misery of life in those camps, it takes a heart of stone to ignore them.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s David Schulman, a Hebrew professor at an Israeli university, writing in The New York Review of Books: “It is a regime of state terror whose raison d’être is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners. I have seen this system in operation over the course of the past twenty odd years.”

Mind you, pro-Israelis might immediately think, “There goes yet another self-loathing Jew.” I don’t know Schulman, but I’ve met a lot of Israelis who not only agree with him, but are adamant that Israel under Netanyahu has become an occupying power bent on capturing the whole West Bank. One thing is for sure, and I will get to the Hamas outrage and the Israeli reaction later on: To Palestinians living under the occupation over the past several years, state violence against them has escalated dramatically.

It is hard for me to describe what I’ve seen with my own eyes when Jewish religious fanatics—or settlers, as they’re called—mostly young men and women imbued with a burning, racist hate for Palestinians, come face-to-face with them. The Israeli army and the police, supposedly neutral, invariably side with the settlers, and thus one more Arab village empties out with religious fanatics moving in. The plan is a simple one and openly espoused by government officials: If life becomes unbearable, the Palestinians will leave and go to Jordan or Saudi Arabia, or anywhere, and the whole West Bank will be Jewish.

Well, it is a pipe dream because there are 8 million Palestinians not exactly wanted by other Arab countries. Netanyahu’s plan was to turn the West Bank into another Gaza, but then came Oct. 7 and we know the rest. Or do we? There is a longtime pattern in that disputed land: Palestinian suicide bombers propelled Netanyahu into the Prime Minister’s office, and it has been he and his hardliners who have fueled extremist Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The horror attacks of Oct. 7 have now been followed by the Gaza massacres of innocents, with more children reported killed in Gaza in the last three weeks than in all global conflicts together in the last year. This is according to Save the Children, not any Palestinian charity.

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Liberty at the Point of a Sword

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2023

Lessons from Napoleon and Hitler

by William J. Astore

Endless war is, as often as not, the final nail in an empire’s coffin.

https://original.antiwar.com/William_Astore/2023/11/27/liberty-at-the-point-of-a-sword/

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

There’s a man who famously crowned himself emperor rather than submit to the otherworldly power of a pope. A new movie will soon be out on his “glories.” Napoleon Bonaparte, a military genius, embraced war and drove for total victory until his empire collapsed on him and the French people. Napoleon’s Waterloo came in 1815, a decade after perhaps his greatest victory at Austerlitz in 1805. Empires—they often seem to decline slowly before collapsing all at once, though the Napoleonic version flared so brightly that it burned out quickly.

I once studied the military glories of Napoleon, enthusiastically playing war-games like Waterloo and Empire in Arms, where this time maybe I could win a great victory for the emperor. More than a few books on my shelves cover the campaigns of Napoleon. But as my dad quipped to me, Napoleon wanted to give people liberty, equality, and fraternity at the point of his sword.  And that, my dad would say, is an intolerable price to pay for one’s freedom.

Win one for the Emperor

Endless war is, as often as not, the final nail in an empire’s coffin. Early in 1943, after defeat at Stalingrad, which came as a profound shock to a German public sold on the idea it possessed the finest fighting force in history (such rhetoric should sound familiar to Americans today), Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propaganda minister, gave a fanatical speech calling for “total war” from the German people. Despite disaster at Stalingrad, despite visible and widening cracks in the alleged superiority of the Thousand Year Reich, the German people largely cheered or echoed the cry for more and more war. Two years later, they witnessed total defeat as Germany surrendered unconditionally in May 1945.

As led by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, Nazi Germany wasn’t interested in peace. These men knew only the feverish pursuit of total victory until it ended in their deaths and total disaster for Germany.  They were the original seekers of “full spectrum dominance” as they asserted Germany was the exceptional and essential nation.

We Americans were supposed to learn something from megalomaniacs like Napoleon and Hitler. Committed to democracy, we were supposed to reject war, to repudiate militarism and the warrior mystique, and to embrace instead diplomacy and the settlement of differences peacefully through international organizations like the United Nations.

America today, however, is busy beating plowshares into swords and sending them to global hotspots like Gaza and Ukraine. What gives?

See the rest here

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YOU Can Hear NEW SOUNDS From OLD MUSIC!

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2023

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-nLL0Ytn33U&si=QXZ-RC6qiZ7kcL6o

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Three Things That Prove a Thing

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2023

By Karen Kwiatkowski

A middle-aged suit was trying to fight his own Israeli-Palestine War with a food vendor on the streets of NYC.  I was not surprised to find out that he once held high level positions in the US State Department and the National Security Council, working on Israeli and Palestinian related “peacemaking” for past-Presidents Clinton and Obama.

Stuart Seldowitz’s behavior last week in NYC communicated to any normal American that he is either a thug, or a thug-in-training, a low-life, a scoundrel.  We find that he was in the current employ of a government-connected lobbying firm profiting from the logistics of war.

What did surprise me was that once the video got out, he was fired from his job, the company wiped him from their website, and he has been charged with “hate” crimes and stalking.

That was quick – and while it is likely, given who he is and where he is, he will get off in his brush with the law scot-free – he won’t get his job back. Given the nature of the internet, he also won’t be able to wipe his recorded bad behavior from the eyes of the now and future world.

That a leading Democrat bureaucrat will experience being charged with the Democratic Party’s most salient contribution to law enforcement is not something we should take pleasure in.  In a more civilized world, cowards like Stuart Seldowitz would be fighting his war of choice in Israel in person, not being rude and nasty to people he doesn’t know, about issues he knows nothing about, in his hometown.

But it’s a thing.

This week, we also saw the amazing election of a vibrant, straight-shooting, former soccer player and current free market economist to the presidency in Argentina.  Anarcho-capitalists and libertarians everywhere must be celebrating this achievement, and also celebrating this trend in elections and party evolution in many places around the world.  It speaks to the power of simple and honest conversations about money and man, the economy, and the state.  It tells us the wisdom of Mises and Rothbard is spreading around the world like a friendly, health-promoting and welcome virus, leaving its hosts empowered, inspired and excited for what comes next.  It speaks to a public and national recognition that the ever-expanding corruption and unfettered, galloping growth of the government-bureaucratic-ruling class has become intolerable.

That government thugs, low-lives and scoundrels – the ruling elite this time – is deadly to liberty and prosperity, and that these elites will destroy their countries to maintain control, does not surprise me. That the average Argentinian gets this – and used the state’s tool of casting a ballot to make a change – does.

Javier Milei – because of who he is and what he understands about the state – is getting a chance to see what may be possible.  We must wish him well. But this confrontation between Milei and the government-bureaucratic-elite would not have happened if the Argentinian state, for generations, had not so publicly, and so thoroughly, ignored civil and moral limits, and had not been arrogant, self-righteous, and greedy.

It’s a thing.

See the rest here

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