The very fact that Europe has to source LNG from Asia on longer routes while vessels burn dirtier fuel is entirely hypocritical to the bloc’s stance about saving the planet. For some context, shipping is responsible for almost 3% of man-made carbon-dioxide emissions.
Like Slow Joe says, we all have to suffer to save the EU from itself …err…stop Nord Stream 2 …err…save Ukraine.
The unilateral sanctions that Western countries slapped Moscow with are igniting even more man-made carbon-dioxide emissions from the shipping industry as Europe rejiggers energy supply chains away from Russia by sourcing energy products from far away.
Jan Dieleman, Cargill Inc.’s head of ocean transportation business, told Bloomberg that European importers are hiring tankers for long-distance hauls of energy products from countries halfway around the world. If it weren’t for the sanctions, natural gas and other refined energy products would flow via pipelines from Russia to Europe.
But since Europe is hellbent on rapidly shifting its entire energy supply chain away from Russia. EU importers are hiring tankers to source liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Asia.
Dieleman said higher fuel costs for vessels mean ship operators are switching to dirtier-burning fuels like diesel or crude oil on these long-haul trips.
The US is locked in endless proxy war with Russia over Ukraine.
The US is locked in rapid escalation with China leading to possible war over Taiwan.
The US is locked in a collision course with Iran over their imaginary nuclear program that could blow up the Middle East.
I’ve not been as concerned about the world stumbling into nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis, 60 years ago next month. A high school senior then, I worried about being denied a long life. Now, at 77, I fret more about my children and grandkids being denied that privilege.
US world dominance since collapse of the Soviet Union is over, but it doesn’t realize it. Like a wounded animal, the US is lashing out on 3 fronts, none of which may have an ending short of nuclear war, and none of which can resurrect American world dominance.
Once the US falls into to abyss of uncontrolled war, we will be no better off than Humpty Dumpty.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
Today, if you call your cousin in London, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can authorize the NSA to spy on you. And if you then call your sister-in-law in Kansas, FISC can allow the NSA to spy on her and on the folks she calls and the folks they call.
Earlier in the summer, the Director of National Intelligence, the data-gathering and data-concealing arm of the American intelligence community masquerading as the head of it, revealed that in 2021, the FBI engaged in 3.4 million warrantless electronic searches of Americans. This is a direct and profound violation of the right to privacy in “persons, houses, papers, and effects” guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.
For the past 60 years, the Supreme Court has characterized electronic surveillance as a search that can only be conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime, which itself must be presented under oath to the judge. The warrant must specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized.
By failing to comply with these constitutional requirements, the FBI violated the natural and constitutionally protected right to be left alone of millions of Americans.
Yet, all of this was perfectly lawful. How can government behavior be both lawful and unconstitutional at the same time and in the same respect?
Here is the backstory.
The Fourth Amendment was written in 1791 while memories of British soldiers searching colonial homes were still prevalent. The British used general warrants to justify their violation of colonists’ privacy. A general warrant was not based on probable cause of crime. It was generated whenever the British government persuaded a secret court in London that it needed something from foreign persons, the colonists. The British government did not even need to identify what it needed.
General warrants authorized the bearer to search wherever he pleased and to seize whatever he found. The Fourth Amendment was written expressly to outlaw general warrants and warrantless searches.
After President Richard Nixon used the FBI and the CIA to spy on his political opponents, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which prohibited warrantless domestic surveillance. Since the Fourth Amendment did so already, the prohibition was superfluous.
It was also toothless, as the new law set up a secret court — the FISA court — which issued surveillance warrants based not on probable cause of crime as the Fourth Amendment requires, but on probable cause of communicating with a foreign person. And the court, over time, kept modifying its own rules to make it easier for the National Security Agency –America’s 60,000 domestic spies — to spy on Americans.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization that will call up 300,000 reservists and warned Western countries that Moscow would use nuclear weapons to defend its territory.
The move marks Putin’s biggest escalation of his war in Ukraine since launching the invasion on February 24, although he is still framing the war as a “special military operation.”
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people — this is not a bluff,” Putin said in a televised address.
“The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence, and freedom will be defended — I repeat — by all the systems available to us. Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the weathervane can turn around,” he said.
Putin didn’t specify the number of reservists that will be activated under the partial mobilization, but the Kremlin later clarified it will be 300,000, which Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu recommended. Putin said Russia will call up “Only those citizens who are currently in the reserve and primarily those who served in the army and have particular military specialties.”
The Russian leader expressed support for referendums on joining Russia that will be held in each area of Russian-controlled Ukraine from September 23-27, which were announced on Tuesday. Referendums will be held in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics in the Donbas region, and in the oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
“I would like to emphasize that we will do everything necessary to create safe conditions for these referendums so that people can express their will. And we will support the choice of future made by the majority of people in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions,” Putin said.
Putin made clear that he blames the US and its allies for the current situation and said a peace deal was possible earlier in the war after Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held talks in Istanbul. He said that he was making the details of the peace talks public for the first time.
“After the start of the special military operation, in particular after the Istanbul talks, Kyiv representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. These proposals concerned above all, ensuring Russia’s security and interests,” he said.
Reports in Western media and Ukrainian media have also said that a deal was close after the Istanbul talks, which were held at the end of March. But according to a report from Ukrainska Pravda, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kyiv in April and told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that even if he was ready to sign a deal with Putin, the collective West was not.
“A peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kyiv was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements,” Putin said.
The Russian leader said that Washington, London, and Brussels were now “openly encouraging Kyiv to move the hostilities to our territory.” After Ukraine launched its successful counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region, shelling was reported in Belgorod, the Russian region that borders the area.
Putin said that the focus will remain on “liberating” the Donbas region. Russia and Russian-backed forces in the region currently control virtually all of the Luhansk oblast, but Ukraine still controls a portion of Donetsk.
U.S. financial tech company PayPal has been accused of a “sinister form of cancel culture” after its decision to shut down the accounts of the Free Speech Union, a U.K. body that defends and supports members who are unfairly targeted or discriminated against by their employers for exercising their legal right to free speech.
The union announced via its social media platforms late on Tuesday evening that PayPal was blocking payments to the body through its platform for “alleged violations of the company’s acceptable use policy.”
Speaking to GB News’ Mark Dolan on Tuesday, Toby Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union, explained he had received an email from PayPal explaining that his personal account had been frozen, with a £600 balance effectively confiscated with no method to withdraw it.
Shortly after, Young received notifications that two companies he founded, the Daily Sceptic and the Free Speech Union, had also had their accounts indefinitely suspended. Young told GB News that approximately a quarter of the Daily Sceptic’s donors used PayPal as a payment method and would now be unable to support the company, and approximately one-third of the 9,500 members of the Free Speech Union paid their recurring membership fees via the payment platform, seriously impeding the group’s ability to receive much-needed income.
“This is the new battlefront in the ongoing war against free speech… financial services being withdrawn from people,” Young told the news channel.
In a statement, the Free Speech Union claimed it had been “demonetized by the financial intermediary PayPal for daring to stand up for free speech,” and urged its members to submit complaints about UK PayPal’s actions to the company.
Yesterday a federal judge struck down another useless mandate, this one in the Head Start program: no longer a vax and mask requirement for workers, and no longer a mask requirement for children.
Head Start is a preschool program, so they were actually planning to keep on masking 2-year-olds until this judge struck the whole stupid thing down.
Something else interesting has been struck down, this one not in the United States but in Canada. That country is dropping its vaccine requirement at the border on September 30.
That makes the United States officially more extreme even than Canada on the question of vaccine requirements for visitors.
In fact, as Phil Kerpen noted, that now leaves Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un with travel ban vax mandates in place.
Nice company there, Joe.
Meanwhile, I keep devoting a chunk of my time — the chunk I’m not spending reporting on world nuttiness, or recording the Tom Woods Show — to practical ways we normal people can improve our lives even as we have to endure such a wretched ruling class.
This week in my School of Life program I brought in two top names in the world of negotiation — business negotiator Allan Tsang and hostage negotiator Dan Oberlinger — to help teach my folks how to get what they want. How to get that raise. How to get that contract. How to get out of that speeding ticket (Allan says he’s done that multiple times with his methods). Everyone loved it.
In two weeks I’ll bring on the brilliant Larry Lepard of Equity Managament Associates to do a session on contrarian investing. Larry has a very impressive track record, as some of you who remember him from the Ron Paul days (when he spent $200,000 of his own money on full-page newspaper ads for Dr. Paul) will recall. He will help my people safeguard their wealth during the inflationary onslaught.
Lots of other great things, and very nice member victories, going on in there right now. Maybe when we reopen you might think about joining: http://www.TomSchoolOfLife.com
And finally, for the more adventurous among you — and I know you’re out there — in case you missed episode 2183 of the Tom Woods Show, I had a chance to speak to Mikkel Thorup, who is an expert on international relocation and expat issues, having visited 100 countries himself and lived in nine, and having been an expat himself for over 20 years.
I myself am too much of a homebody to leave the U.S., but I know for a fact that more of my readers than ever are considering their international options, whether that’s outright relocation or measures short of that, such as second citizenships and the like.
Mikkel is putting on a free virtual event that I thought you might be interested in. It will cover everything you need to know about the expat life: migration, residencies, citizenship, investment, the expat lifestyle and more.
It’s just been announced that Ron Paul will be speaking, alongside Doug Casey, Liberland founder Vit Jedlicka, and an array of experts whose combined expertise makes this surely the number-one expat event of the year.
If all this arouses your curiosity, you can still access a free ticket to the event at this link:
“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”
― Baruch Spinoza
It hasn’t been a month since President Biden mounted the steps of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, declaring it his duty to ensure each of us understands the central faction of his political opposition are extremists that “threaten the very foundations of our Republic.” Flanked by the uniformed icons of his military and standing atop a Leni Riefenstahl stage, the leader clenched his fists to illustrate seizing the future from the forces of “fear, division, and darkness.” The words falling from the teleprompter ran rich with the language of violence, a “dagger at the throat” emerging from the “shadow of lies.”
“What’s happening in our country,” the President said, “is not normal.”
Is he wrong to think that? The question the speech intended to raise—the one lost in the unintentionally villainous pageantry—is whether and how we are to continue as a democracy and a nation of laws. For all the Twitter arguments over Biden’s propositions, there has been little consideration of his premises.
Democracy and therule of law have been so frequently invoked as a part of the American political brand that we simply take it for granted that we enjoy both.
Are we right to think that?
Our glittering nation of laws observes this year two birthdays: the 70th anniversary of the National Security Agency, on which my thoughts have been recorded, and the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA was founded in the wake of the 1947 National Security Act. The Act foresaw no need for the Courts and Congress to oversee a simple information-aggregation facility, and therefore subordinated it exclusively to the President, through the National Security Council he controls.
In 1963, no less than former President Harry Truman confessed that the very agency he personally signed into law had transformed into something altogether different than he intended, writing:
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble…”
Many today comfort themselves by imagining that the Agency has been reformed, and that such abuses are relics of the distant past, but what few reforms our democracy has won have been watered-down or compromised. The limited “Intelligence Oversight” role that was eventually conceded to Congress in order to placate the public has never been taken seriously by either the committee’s majority—which prefers cheerleading over investigating—or by the Agency itself, which continues to conceal politically-sensitive operations from the very group most likely to defend them.
How can we judge the ultimate effectiveness of oversight and reforms? Well, the CIA plotted to assassinate my friend, American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, in 1972, yet nearly fifty years of “reforms” did little to inhibit them from recently sketching out another political murder targeting Julian Assange. Putting that in perspective, you probably own shoes older than the CIA’s most recent plot to murder a dissident… or rather the most recent plot that we know of.
If you believe the Assange case to be a historical anomaly, some aberration unique to Trump White House, recall that the CIA’s killings have continued in series across administrations. Obama ordered the killing of an American far from any battlefield, and killed his 16 year-old American son a few weeks later, but the man’s American daughter was still alive by the time Obama left.
I am certain that most Americans do not have a clue what transpired this week at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (aka SCO). It is a clarion call, a defiant declaration, that the countries, which account for over half of the world’s population, are no longer going to defer to the United States. The attendees included Russia, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The speeches by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are especially noteworthy. Both countries put the United States on notice that the United States and NATO will be treated as a sponsor of terrorism because they supply weapons to Ukraine that are being used to attack civilian targets.
I am certain that most Americans do not have a clue what transpired this week at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (aka SCO). It is a clarion call, a defiant declaration, that the countries, which account for over half of the world’s population, are no longer going to defer to the United States. The attendees included Russia, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The speeches by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are especially noteworthy. Both countries put the United States on notice that the United States and NATO will be treated as a sponsor of terrorism because they supply weapons to Ukraine that are being used to attack civilian targets. You may accuse me of exaggerating because neither Putin nor Xi mention the United States or NATO by name. But the actions of the NATO allies in Ukraine are seen by both Russia and China as acts of terrorism. I am reprinting the salient portions of each speech below.
Russia and China also put the west on notice that Iran is no longer going to be treated as a pariah state. Iran is welcomed emphatically by both Putin and Xi as a member of the SCO. Going forward, this means that Iran will do business with all members of the SCO under the rubric of a new financial order being organized by Russia, China, India and Brazil.
I am sure this is jarring news to the western allies. They have enjoyed the luxury of the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the international reserve currency. It was the Golden Rule at work–those with the gold make the rules. The United States faces a dilemma because it insists on levying international sanctions on any nation or leader who refuses to toe Washington’s line, but the blow back effects of those sanctions are savaging the European economies and will hurt America as well.
China and Russia now realize and affirm that the United States is no longer a reliable, trustworthy partner. They see the United States as a petulant child that, in the past, coerced others by throwing temper tantrums and launching ill-conceived, foolish foreign military operations.
Most important, but not said, the leaders of the SCO realize that Washington is leaderless. Biden is a demented buffoon. Putin demonstrated this in his press conference. He did not have a podium to lean on. He did not have a cheat sheet of journalists that instructed him who to call on. And he spoke intelligently off the cuff. Pay attention to what he says:
Under these new conditions, the SCO, as an important constructive force in international and regional affairs, should keep itself well-positioned in the face of changing international dynamics, ride on the trend of the times, strengthen solidarity and cooperation and build a closer SCO community with a shared future.
First, we need to enhance mutual support. We should strengthen high-level exchanges and strategic communication, deepen mutual understanding and political trust, and support each other in our efforts to uphold security and development interests. We should guard against attempts by external forces to instigate “color revolution,” jointly oppose interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext, and hold our future firmly in our own hands.
Second, we need to expand security cooperation. A proverb in Uzbekistan goes to the effect that “With peace, a country enjoys prosperity, just as with rain, the land can flourish.” The Global Security Initiative put forward by China is to address the peace deficit and global security challenges. It calls on all countries to stay true to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture. We welcome all stakeholders to get involved in implementing this initiative.
We should continue to carry out joint anti-terrorism exercises, crack down hard on terrorism, separatism and extremism, drug trafficking as well as cyber and transnational organized crimes; and we should effectively meet the challenges in data security, biosecurity, outer space security and other non-traditional security domains. China is ready to train 2,000 law enforcement personnel for SCO member states in the next five years, and establish a China-SCO base for training counter-terrorism personnel, so as to enhance capacity-building for law enforcement of SCO member states.
Third, we need to deepen practical cooperation. To deliver a better life for people of all countries in the region is our shared goal. The Global Development Initiative launched by China aims to focus global attention on development, foster global development partnership, and achieve more robust, greener and more balanced global development. China is ready to work with all other stakeholders to pursue this initiative in our region to support the sustainable development of regional countries.
