“The CIA infiltrated the media.” That statement wore out its welcome decades ago. The media ARE the CIA.

The only proviso, if you want to call it that: most reporters are too stupid to realize who they slave for.

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

I mention this because we’re not getting war news, we’re getting CIA news.

Now on the other hand, here is a WRITER—I don’t know who he is; his handle is Good Citizen on Substack. I’ll tell you this. If I could, I’d appoint him to head up negotiations between Russia and the Ukraine in a New York minute. Screw in your brain tightly and read what he recently laid down in one of his carpet bombing runs:

“Imagine this scenario of aggression. Russia has established something called SATA. (Surround America Together Alliance) with the Bahamas, Cuba, Canada and all of Central America. Article 5 of SATA says if one goes to war, they all go to war. Putin is trying to get Mexico to join. He orchestrated a coup there in 2014 and installed a puppet dictator who helps enrich Putin through Putin’s crack head son. He keeps assuring Mexico they will join SATA one day, even though the other countries would not approve the vote and they don’t meet some minimum requirements. Other politicians in the duma send their kids to be on boards of Mexican companies to collect paychecks of $50,000 per month. Russia keeps sending weapons to Mexico who has a neo-Nazi force of nationalists near the border who take shots at English speaking American separatists who would prefer to be part of the United States. Cease fires are broken 2000 times over 8 years, leaving 14,000 dead in the conflict. The U.S. has taken a patient stance, trying to reason with the Mexican coke-head dictator but he keeps accepting SATA weapons and money. Last week the Mexican dictator said he doesn’t just want SATA membership, he wants Russian nukes in his country aimed at the United States. That was the final straw. Tuesday the U.S. launched air strikes across Mexico and declared those English speaking American states as independent republics.”

It’s hard for Americans to consider that they’re living in a news bubble cut off from reality. That grisly fate is supposed to befall lesser countries.

And when American news involves foreign policy, the bubble is double, because that’s where American oligarchs have traditionally stolen a great deal of their money, and “don’t tell the children” has always been the motto of the CIA.

For readers who’ve been following my 2-year assault on the medical bubble surrounding the non-pandemic called COVID, think of the CIA as the CDC of political criminality. The CIA locks down countries. They “vaccinate countries and improve their immunity” by staging coups. They tell you which countries are viruses. They “stop the spread.”

We only see the least clever CIA people delivering the news on television, because those anchors have to be dumb; they have to believe they’re dispensing truth. They have to be unaware that cover stories, limited hangouts, false trails, appeals to authority, and straw man arguments are the stock-in-trade of standard intelligence operations.

If you told anchors Lester “Lurch” Holt or David “Sears underwear model” Muir that the puppet-comedian President of the Ukraine was handing out thousands of weapons to ordinary untrained citizens with the inevitable effect of many of them dying—for television coverage—Lester and David would have no idea what you were talking about.

Here’s a CIA-CDC parallel. The first great signal that the CIA had captured American news came in the wake of the JFK assassination—when US media unanimously agreed the Warren Commission had the facts straight: Oswald acted alone. This, despite nagging evidence (which piled up in future years) that the CIA itself had engineered the President’s murder.

In 1986, in a notorious deal between the US Congress and vaccine manufacturers, a law was passed which ruled out a citizen suing a manufacturer for toxic vaccine damage. Instead, the plaintiff had to appeal to a Kafka-esque federal “court” for compensation. At that point, the truth began to dawn. The CDC was in the big business of buying and selling vaccines; it was also in charge of reporting statistics on vaccine damage; and it was also conducting studies to assess vaccine safety and efficacy. News media took no notice of any of these facts—which when you added them up, amounted to mass murder by vaxx.

Two giant news bubbles, inside which the American population lived. Unaware.

Just as the CIA travels to distant lands, subverts and topples governments, paves the way for mega-corporate takeovers, and then feeds fantasies back to news networks, the medical CIA—the CDC—has it own crew of invaders. They’re called the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS).

These trained medical personnel carry out several hundred missions a year, to foreign lands where possible “outbreaks” are occurring.

They are the virus hunters. They’ve never met a non-existent virus they didn’t love.

Graduates of this EIS program, as proudly stated by the CDC, have gone on to occupy key positions in the overall medical cartel: Surgeons General; CDC directors; medical school deans and professors; medical foundation executives; drug-company and insurance executives; state health officials; MEDICAL EDITORS AND REPORTERS IN MEDIA OUTLETS. —Power, at key junctures.

It’s a loyal insider’s club. They collaborate to float prime-cut, A-number-one cover stories of extraordinary dimensions. They invent reality out of thin air.

They front for the medical cartel. And they provide cover for the crimes of mega-corporations. There’s a foreign town where poverty-stricken people are dying, because horrendous pesticides are running into the soil? No, it’s a virus. There’s a city where the industrial pollution is driving people over the edge into immune-system failure? No, it’s a virus. Dead fish are floating on a yellow and purple river next to a factory pipe that’s pouring steaming poison into the water? No, it’s a new virus no one knew existed.

And here’s the capper. Their propaganda is so good most of the EIS people (just like the news anchors) believe it themselves. You don’t achieve that kind of robotic servitude without intense brainwashing. The first installment of the mind-control program is called medical school.

You might be living in one of America’s deathzones and not have a clue about it
What if that were you? What would YOU do?

In the next few minutes, I’m going to show you the U.S. Nuclear Target map, where you’ll find out if you’re living in one of America’s Deathzones.

The EIS would have you imagine the whole world is being attacked by viruses, all the time. That’s their mission.

Bubbles.

News bubbles.

War news bubbles.

Medical and pandemic news bubbles.

Try one on for size.

Walk inside one and live there.

Nothing to lose, except your mind.

And everything that follows from that.

We’re doing a Day 6 (March 1) military update from military expert and analyst, The Saker (below), starting with this short summary from former German intelligence officer Moon of Alabama:

Disarming Ukraine – Day 6

Just a few points (which I may add to later on):

• Russia’s military operational security seems to work well as little is leaking out about the positions of its forces.
• Mariupol in the south is now encircled. The Ukraine has lost all access to the sea of Azov. (ER: See map below. Mariupol, south of the Donbass region, has a serious contingent of neo-Nazi forces to contend with.)
• After a warning that it would attack ‘psychological operation’ infrastructure in Kiev, a Russian plane bombed the electricity substation that feeds the studios and media centers around the TV-tower of Kiev.

***

Below, The Saker will remind us that it is the neo-Nazi contingent, both found as a separate militia(s) and within the Ukraine military itself, who are fighting hard, and who are allegedly taking local area residents hostage, who have limited supplies of food (this last detail from Benjamin Fulford yesterday). Let’s remind ourselves of what these people look like:

********

See this very short video report from an American living in Kiev, walking on the empty streets this past Monday, Feb. 28. He talks with frustration about how the Ukrainian govt has supplied known criminals and other local people with weapons, a strategy designed to create chaos and injure civilians, not to stop the Russians:

https://www.bitchute.com/embed/Le2Rd2thyUCi/

********

ER: This map is our own contribution so that the military map below might be more clear. From this and previous days’ accounts we’ve published, it is clear that the Russian military is progressively covering the region from (more or less) Chernobyl on the Belarus border (including Kiev), going EAST (Kharkiv is a critical city), then going SOUTH and right round to Odessa on the Black Sea. Of course, this encompasses the key regions of the Donbass (in red/orange).

Day 6, a couple of quick points

THE SAKER

First, let’s begin with a pretty decent map of the situation today:

Here is a small commentary on what we see in this map:

In red the most recent Russian movements today.  The only major progress is inside the purpose square when Russian forces have penetrated deep in the rear of both Odessa and Kiev.  So I have to wonder – are they planning a strategic cauldron??? Dunno, but I decided to add a black bar to show where we might want to look closer in the coming days.

Mariupol is, as already mentioned, totally closed off and heavy fighting is taking place. This city will be forcibly denazified in the next couple of days.

The (much awaited) operational cauldron in the east is still not physically closed by Russian forces. But, as I already mentioned, the no man’s land between the two Russian prongs is completely “shot through” (to use a Russian expression) which means that while small groups can still make it out, it’s over for the heavy Ukie armor, artillery and Nazi death-squads, who are STILL shelling Donetsk (ER: within the Donbass area) which, of course, nobody reports about in the Empire of Lies.

I suppose that they want to kill as many Russians before the inevitable outcome…

On this topic, I got an email from a Chinese friend today, and he made a very astute observation. Here is what he wrote:

——-
Have you noticed how many Battle of Berlin style Wehrmacht tactics are being used by the Kiev regime? We’re less than a week into the war, & so far we’re already seeing:

1. Volkssturm in Kiev (granted an even more half-assed version thereof) (ER: volkssturm is about raising a civilian fighting force from among the local people);
2. Preventing civilians from leaving the warzone
3. Holding festungs down to the last man (e.g. Kharkov, Mariupol, etc.) (ER: ‘festung’ is a German word meaning ‘fortress’);
4. Forced conscription of military aged men;
5. Strafbattalion (ER: means ‘penal battalion’. Meaning that prisoners would be used in military combat.)

Am I missing anything else? 😀
——-

He *does* have a point, doesn’t he?

But he did miss one thing:  The Ukie “Wunderwaffe” of course! (ER: wonder weapon – being used ironically here since Russia is acknowledged to have the most superior military in the world)

Possible candidates include:

1. Javelins!!!
2. Bayraktars!!!
3. NLAWs!!!
4. Western fighter aircraft!!!
5. ISIS fighters!!!
6. Wooden Kalashnikovs!!!
7. Assorted Soviet era weapons with new names!!!
8. Nazi volunteers from all over Europe!!!
9. Polish, British and Estonian special forces!!! and, of course,
10. Ze’s “nuke!!!! (ER: ‘Ze’ is Zelensky)

So not one, but TEN Wunderwaffen for the Ukies.

Will “Ze” end like Adolf did or will he run?

I bet you he will run.

They mostly already have…

One more thing.

The Ukie Volkssturm is turning into a very serious disaster which might get much worse in the near future.  Here is what is happening.

In some cities, the local authorities were contacted by Russian forces and an orderly change of command took place.  The civilians authorities are working (almost?) as normal and law and order is (mostly?) secured.

The problem are the hardcore Nazi volunteer death-squads who distributed military weapons to anybody and everybody, including convicted felons and criminals. These gangs are now mostly fighting each other because they are taken over by paranoid hallucinations about “Russian Spetsnaz” (ER: special forces) everywhere, and since most Ukies speak Russian, unless on video, even the hardcore ones, they have a MAJOR “IFF” (Identification Friend or Foe) problem.

They are also more getting desperate and even more violent than usual: Russian POWs are being tortured to death as a matter of course (Russian special services are tracking down all their names, there will be a big Nuremberg like trial when this war ends).

I have heard of only one instance were the Ukie Volkssturm engaged a column of Russian national guard troops. They were all killed in minutes.

But here are two very real dangers:

1. Ukrainian civilians are now at risk all over Banderastan (ER: supporters of WWII Nazi sympathizer and fascist, Stepan Bandera)
2. Ukie Volkssturm atrocities will be filmed by the western presstitutes and blamed on Russia

Frankly, this could turn into another MH-17, but at a much, much bigger scale.

I hope and pray that any and all Ukrainians who are not Nazis now (finally!) stop waiting for Russia to clean house in their country (yet again!) and do something to disarm the marauding Ukie Volkssturm gangs.  May God help all those who are innocent and preserve them by His Might.

Signing off for the evening,

The Great Depression of the 1930s is burned into most preppers’ minds. The horror stories from that grim time are a stark reminder of how fast things can go bad, even in a country that seems rich, strong and confident – and of how bad they can get.

As a motivation to be prepared, the Great Depression takes some beating.

But what if, as well as a reminder of why prepping is a good idea, it’s also what we need to be preparing for?

Many economists believe that another Great Depression could throw the world back into the poverty and chaos of the dustbowl era, and some think it’s likely to happen this year.

Paranoid? Alarmist? Well, they have a lot of evidence on their side – too much to just dismiss.

Technically, the Great Depression lasted for four years, from 1929 to 1933. In reality, it took until 1940 for US GDP to recover to its 1929 level, and even then unemployment was still at 15%. Only the militarization of the economy for World War II finally swept away the Great Depression’s after-effects.

Is A New Depression Coming?

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it threw the US economy into recession in a matter of days. In the second quarter of 2020, US GDP fell by 31.4% – one of the fastest and deepest falls ever.

However, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the 2020 recession was also the shortest ever; officially, it lasted just two months. Technically it was too short to qualify as a recession at all.

There’s a lot more to the story than that, though. Our economy has bounced back a long way from the damage lockdown did, but it’s still in deep trouble – and the government is storing up even more trouble for the future. There are a lot of pieces moving behind the scenes, and if they line up wrong a depression could hit us fast and hard.

A lot of Americans are still jobless. In June 2021 the unemployment rate stood at 5.9%. That’s a long way down from its 14.7% peak last April – but a long way up from the 3.5% we had last February. Millions of Americans who were working 18 months ago are unemployed now, and the growth in jobs seems to have slowed.

Unemployment fell by 7% in the six months after the April peak, but only 1.9% in the next nine months. The June 2021 figure was actually slightly up on May, which alarmed economists who’d been expecting another small drop.

Despite unemployment that in normal times would be a national scandal, the government is paying people to sit at home. In many states, the jobless can still claim an extra $300 a month in federal assistance. If you were in a low-paid job, regular unemployment plus an extra $300 might just be enough that you don’t really want to go back to work.

Unfortunately, businesses need low-paid employees too – and having so many of them out of work is slowing our economic recovery.

The Danger of Inflation

Of course, all that extra unemployment benefit has to be paid for, and the government is paying for it by printing money. The stimulus checks sent to every American home also had to be paid for, and the government printed the money for those too. The huge “stimulus” and “infrastructure” bills the government is enacting? A lot of that money will be printed, and the rest borrowed.

The trouble is, creating or borrowing that much new money doesn’t make the country richer; it makes each dollar less valuable. There’s a shortage of vacant homes, so people have to pay more to buy or rent one. That causes inflation and a weaker dollar.

As the dollar gets weaker, imported goods cost more. We import oil, so that means gas costs more. And that’s if you can afford a car to put the gas in, because we import a lot of cars too.

As imports get more expensive, the supply of domestic goods can’t keep up – so prices rise. Employers have to pay more for energy and raw materials, which pushes prices up more. High gas costs for transport get added to prices, which go up again. There are more dollars in the economy, but we can’t buy as much.

So, the government passes laws to raise the minimum wage – which means employers have to raise prices even more. After a certain point it all starts to feed on itself, and inflation isn’t just rising anymore; it takes off like a rocket.

Debt

Right now, our money supply is inflating by about a billion dollars every hour. Our national debt is rising so quickly that, if you look at it in real time, the last five digits are changing too fast to follow. By 2025 we’ll be spending more on debt interest than we do on defense.

Sometime beyond that, maybe in the 2030s, debt interest will match, then exceed, tax revenues. We’ll need to borrow – or print – more money just to pay the interest on what we’ve already borrowed.

But will we even make it that far? On July 28, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell admitted that inflation is rising – and could go further than the Fed had predicted. If the government keeps pumping new money into the system inflation will spiral out of control this year. There are signs that it’s already happening.

House prices are up 23% in just one year. Used car prices are up 45%. Farmers say even the cost of a bale of hay has risen 20% in the last twelve months. That’s all pushing the inflation figures upwards, and it might already be too late for the government to push the lid back down.

How Bad Could It Be?

The original Great Depression was bad – but if one hits now it will be much, much worse. In 1929 the global economy was nowhere near as interconnected as it is today. If inflation keeps rising the weak dollar will cripple the US economy – and we can’t pay for a New Deal-style program to get it moving again.

On top of that we’re much more dependent on power and communications than our ancestors were. 

Well, if you want to survive the next depression you need to figure that in. Can you work without the internet? Can you access your bank account if your cell phone app stops working?

Final Words

Getting through the next depression is going to mean prepping for the long term. Three months’ worth of food won’t be enough, because the depression will last for years. You need to be looking at livestock, and the ability to grow your own crops.

When you look at electricity generation, consider wind, water and solar power – they don’t rely on fuel that might become unaffordable.

If we want to make it through a crash like the 1929 generation, we’ll need many of the skills and tools they had. Are you prepared for that?

Soros Helped known Actor and Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy become President of Ukraine by Brainwashing the Country with a TV Series called “Servant of the People”

Poster of the TV show “Servant of the People.”

George Soros’ involvement in Ukraine is well known; his name is linked to the Orange Revolution and regime changes in the country. Like in Georgia.

George Soros acknowledged in an interview with CNN that he actively contributed to the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. “I created a foundation in Ukraine before it became independent from Russia. The foundation has functioned since then and has played an important role in current events,” explains the financier who established the International Renaissance Foundation, in Ukraine, as part of the Open Society Foundations, in April 1990.

The infamous foundation originally placed in Ukraine by the New World Order with the aim to assist the transition to democracy, to a market economy became a sort of parallel government immediately starting a series of projects in different areas without ever truly helping the country and ultimately giving the role of President of Ukraine, serving since May 2019, to a comedian/clown called Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who made his apparent fortune with a Ukrainian political satire comedy television series but was secretly financed by a friend of  Soros, the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. His name appeared in the revelations made thanks to the Pandora Papers investigation, the world’s largest-ever journalistic collaboration, involving more than 600 journalists, that unmasked the hidden owners of offshore companies, secret bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions, and precious artworks of a bunch of influential people from the New World Order elite. More than 100 billionaires, 29,000 offshore accounts, 30 current, and former leaders, and 300 public officials were named in the first leaks in October 2021 that pushed many governments to launch their own inquiries into the financial activities revealed in the papers.

The worldwide probe was prompted by a massive journalist exposé put together by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), that included work by journalists from the Ukrainian media Slidstvо.Info, which connected the shady financial dealings of Zelensky’s television production company Studio Kvartal 95 to the aforementioned Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. Slidstvo found that the laundered money passed through the Cyprus branch of Kolomoisky-owned Privatbank, according to law enforcement officers.

Ten years ago, the popular Kvartal 95 started their shows on the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1 owned by Igor Kolomoisky. Their shows and programs were hits on the channel owned by Kolomoisky, who will later support Zelensky and the team, not only as entertainers but also as politicians, allegedly under suggestions made by none other than George Soros himself. Today, Kolomoisky is a person of interest in investigations in Ukraine, Britain, and the United States, who will probably ignore the results.

Of course, it was Soros’s Foundation in Ukraine that wanted to fight corruption by strengthening transparency and accountability in Ukraine, supporting the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine in 2014, but nothing really happened and the following year, in 2015, The Guardian called Ukraine “the most corrupt nation in Europe,” and according to a poll conducted by Ernst & Young in 2017, experts considered Ukraine to be the ninth-most corrupt nation in the world.

Soros Foundation also said it wanted to support investigative journalism projects, as well as the development of independent media outlets in Ukraine but in 2010, and again in 2021, Freedom House perceived “negative trends in Ukraine,” with government-critical opposition media outlets being closed, demonstrating the authoritarian nature of the pro-Western government led by a former comedian.

As you can see, Ukraine is governed by a clown financed by George Soros, who made his fortune with a TV series called “Servant of the People” in which Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy stars as Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko, a high-school history teacher in his thirties who is unexpectedly elected President of Ukraine after a viral video filmed by one of his students shows him making a profane rant against government corruption in his country. Unfortunately, Zelenskyy’s claim made during his political campaign that he will clear his country like his fictional character in the TV series, was propaganda, as Ukraine is becoming a bad joke crafted by Soros and Kvartal 95 Studio, the television entertainment production company, operating in Ukraine since 2003, officially owned by Zelenskyy, but allegedly financed by Soros’ buddy Igor Kolomoisky, whose leading figures later joined Zelensky’s administration as Deputy Heads of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, and one as Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Secret Service.

Now you can understand why Vladimir Putin does not take Zelenskyy and his administration too seriously as they are literally a joke produced by George Soros and friends, to control and brainwash into submission the people of Ukraine now left in the middle of a possible bloody war.

How many of you believe that this country is plunging head-first into a state of revolution? How many of you believe that a planned currency collapse coupled with the implementation of a brutal martial law and gun confiscation will be the trigger events which will incite the coming revolution?

 Americans will soon be forced into a guerrilla war of survival – Can America win against the globalist occupation forces?

Ever since the fall of the Communist system and the fracturing of the old Soviet Union in 1989-1991, the globalist foreign policy hawks in the American state department and their dutiful minions in the media and amongst both political parties have actively pursued a program of what the late zealous Neoconservative Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer termed a “unipolar” world. By that Krauthammer meant a post-Communist (and essentially secularized) world in which the established form of American “liberal democracy” would now succeed in imposing a new world order. In the words of prominent Neocon author Allan Bloom: “And when we Americans speak seriously about politics, we mean that our principles of freedom and equality and the rights based on them are rational and everywhere applicable. World War II was really an educational experiment undertaken to force those who do not accept these principles to do so.” [Allan Bloom, quoted in Paul Gottfried, War and Democracy: Selected Essays, 1975-2012 (London: Arktos Media, 2012), p. 110] (my Italics in the text)

But, in fact, as the late Sam Francis explained in various books and essays (e.g., Leviathan and Its Enemies, 2016), this Neocon vision of a new world order is nothing less than a form of managerial kleptocracy, the control by powerful elites in our (permanent) government and big corporations who talk incessantly about democracy, but in fact use that term to disguise the increasing dominance they exercise over every facet of public and private life, whether in the United States, Western Europe, or since 1991 over most of the former Eastern Bloc.

Do we need further examples of this closer to home than the recent authoritarian actions by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or the extra-constitutional actions by what is euphemistically called “the January 6 Committee” in the US Congress? Stand in the way of the Deep State administrative managers, and you get suppressed, cancelled, and arrested, and held in a Federal jail for months without bail or trial.

The present crisis in Ukraine has everything to do with the objectives and maneuvers of this managerial kleptocracy, and its attempts to force post-Communist—increasingly anti-Marxist—Russia to accept such a template.

Recall a bit of history: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Secretary of State James Baker (representing President George H. W. Bush) solemnly agreed in principle that the old USSR would disintegrate into various new “republics,” and in return NATO would not advance beyond its current borders, that is, would not take in those former Eastern Bloc countries (e.g., Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the Baltics, etc.), an action which would be seen as directly hostile and offensive to a greatly reduced Russian Federation. Indeed, after the end of the Soviet Union, its dismemberment, and the rise of an avowedly traditionalist and pro-Christian leadership in Moscow (no less a figure than the Reverend Franklin Graham noticed this), was there any reason for NATO even to exist, as President Trump once mused…other than as a means for continued and increasing managerial control (following the Bloom paradigm)?

Professor Richard Sakwa (University of Kent, UK), in his excellent and very detailed study, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (December 2014), has termed what happened after the fall of Soviet Communism the triumph of “asymetrism,” by which he means that instead of welcoming the new, post-Communist Russia, which had now publicly rejected and repudiated the seventy years of brutal years of Marxist domination, as an equal partner in a “Greater West,” our foreign policy and Neocon managers in Washington and Brussels demanded that Russia give up any pretense of real independence or true partnership with the West.

This process occurred in steps, each time with agreements or protocols or memoranda, which were solemnized between the parties, but then essentially undermined by the US or by our client regime in Kiev. During the Clinton administration, and continuing on until 2020, one by one the former Eastern Bloc countries were admitted as members of NATO, including the Baltic states. In effect, the promises of Baker and the elder Bush meant nothing. What then were the Russians to think?

Much is made of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of December 5, 1994. Through that protocol Russia, the US and the United Kingdom “confirmed their recognition of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine becoming parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively abandoning their nuclear arsenals to Russia.” In return, Russia recognized the integrity and sovereignty of a neutral, non-militarized, non-hostile Ukraine. And accordingly, despite political turmoil and internal conflict within the Ukrainian state, from 1994 until the violent, American-sponsored Maidan coup d’etat revolution of February 2014 (again, recall US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland’s direct involvement), that agreement held. But with the flagrant violation of a truce between organized Kiev protesters (who had received from the US over $5 billion to foment revolution) and the popularly-elected government of Viktor Yanukovych (who was seen by the Ukraine revolutionaries as pro-Russian), and the subsequent seizure of power by US-backed Ukrainian irredentists who then proceeded to severely persecute Ukraine’s very large Russian-language and ethnic minority, the Budapest protocol was effectively abrogated (cf., Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine, pp. 86-88 et seq).

It should be noted, as well, the United States never considered the Budapest Memorandum legally binding (Statement of April 12, 2013) or in the category of a concluded treaty.

Russia responded by acceding to the overwhelming vote of citizens of the Crimean peninsula, which had never been Ukrainian, only forcefully “given” to the artificial “Ukrainian Socialist Republic” in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (allegedly after a night of riotous drinking). For the Crimea includes the major Russian Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol, supposedly guaranteed by agreement to Russia, but which after the Maidan coup, the new American-sponsored regime in Kiev now threatened to take.

Russian president Vladimir Putin responded via a press conference on March 4, 2014, to a question about Russia’s supposed violation (in Crimea) of the Budapest Memorandum, describing the current Ukrainian situation as a revolution: “a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents.” The Ukrainian state as envisaged by the Budapest Memorandum had, effectively, ceased to exist, and in its place an American-CIA-US State Department-created state had been forcibly implanted in its place.

Further, Russia declared that it had never been under obligation to “force any part of Ukraine’s civilian population to stay in Ukraine against its will,” including the two newly-independent heavily-Russophone states of Donetsk and Lugansk in what was eastern Ukraine (those provinces, like Crimea, had never been a part of any independent Ukrainian nation, but were forcibly given to the artificial Soviet republic by Vladimir Lenin in 1922).

Once again, whether through the so-called “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, or the American debacle in the Balkans, which only succeeded in creating an Islamist republic—Kosovo—in the heart of Europe, the “Orange Revolution” in Kiev must be seen in context as part and parcel of the overall Neocon and globalist effort to advance their internationalist aims. And those goals, let it be said, have nothing to do with traditional Western and Christian beliefs and values. Rather, they were and are a manifestation of what globalist Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, defined as “the Great Reset,” the “window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.”

In fact, the Russian incursion into Ukraine comes as a direct and cumulative result of actions which our State Department and intelligence community, with its minions in Western Europe, have engineered for thirty years: to, as it were, “put Russia in its place—at the back of the bus.”

President Zelensky of Ukraine, most recently implied that Ukraine might well go back and reconsider its decision to de-nuclearize. This, then, along with the violent persecution of the huge Russophone minority within Ukrainian borders, precipitated Putin’s decision to take action. After decades of broken promises, broken treaties, and violated protocols, whether at Budapest or the Minsk Agreements (which could have settled the issues equitably), which Ukraine, encouraged by our globalists, never implemented, the Russian bear had its back against the wall: either stand up to those who would subjugate you, or fight back.

Recall again the words of that great anti-Communist novelist, anti-totalitarian and fervent Christian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Moscow News, interview with W. T. Trietiakov published 28 April/4May 2006):

“Events in Ukraine, ever since the time of the referendum in 1991, with its poorly formulated options, have been a constant source of pain and anger to me. I have written and spoken about this often. The fanatic oppression and suppression of the Russian language there (a language which polls show is consistently the preferred language of 60% of the people there) is a beastly methodology aimed primarily against the cultural prospects of Ukraine itself. The vast territories which were never part of historic Ukraine, such as Crimea, Novorosiya and the entire southeast were forcibly and arbitrarily consumed into the territory of modern Ukraine and made hostage to Ukraine’s desires to join NATO…. It is all a simple minded, indeed simpleton and cruel joke perpetuated against the entire history of XIX and XX century Russia. Given these circumstances, Russia will never, in any way, betray the many millions of Russian speaking peoples in Ukraine. Russia will never abandon the ideal of unity with them.”

No one—no one—wants war, with the resultant terrible destruction, loss of life, and mayhem it inevitably brings. But as I have written in previous essays, if you search for the profound cause for what has happened, it is not the invading Russians, it is not really the regime in Kiev, but rather it is the sponsoring apparatchiks in Foggy Bottom along the Potomac, in Brussels, and in the houses of Congress (the Lindsey Grahams and Roger Wickers who actually urge our potential use of nuclear weapons against Russia), and what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts calls the “pressitutes” in American media, from Fox News to MSNBC (which now are like an indistinguishable, foaming-at-the-mouth phalanx in their defense of the aggressive managerial world revolution).

The blood spilt will be on our hands, that is, on the hands of our elites. As cartoonist Walt Kelly once put it: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

Political leaders in the US, Canada, Germany, and France – all NATO countries – got back on script yesterday. They could not wait to get to the microphones. They all seemed to have new energy and purpose in life. Politicians are made for this moment! They are vastly more talented at dishing out righteous opprobrium directed at foreign beasts, which make far more compelling enemies, than inveighing against invisible viruses.

As Russian bombs rained down on Ukraine, Western leaders – having spent the better part of two years bullying their citizens and quelling protests – spoke in soaring tones about freedom, democracy, peace, and human rights. They condemned the brutality of Putin and his revanchist vision of Tsarist restoration. They had a new sense of resolve in their moral superiority as leaders of the free and modern republics that do not invade their neighbors.

The part we do not see is that many of these people – together with media organs and administrators of many deep-state bureaucracies – are absolutely thrilled to start a new season.

Away with the appalling mismanagement of the pathogen. Away with public anger toward the lockdowns and mandates. Forget the collapse in children’s literacy, the rise in cancer, the waves of depression, the trucker protests, the collapsing polls of many elected leaders, and forget too the inflation, the federal debt, supply-chain snarls and goods shortages. Forget all the astonishing botches of everything.

Life was never as good in living memory as when we had a solid foreign enemy named Russia with a leader with a name and a face. Everything wrong with the world could be personalized, and with storybook thematics: good vs evil, freedom vs despotism, democracy vs dictatorship. This great struggle was so good for both sides that they made it last 40 years. There must be a certain nostalgia for those days alive in the hearts of incumbent political establishments today.

And so, Putin has given Western political elites a wonderful gift. He has created a template that allows them all to say in unison: there is something even worse than us. They can hope for a turnaround in their sagging polling numbers, new respect and appreciation for their strong leadership in a time of crisis, and more reliably depend on a deferential media machine that knows the ways of wartime require parroting whatever powerful foreign-policy experts say in public and private.

There is some powerful symbolism here with Putin’s outright military invasion. He knew that he could count on both India and China to look the other way, even tacitly approve his move. And he knew for sure that NATO countries would bluster and impose sanctions but were not in a position to do anything beyond that. He further knew that Ukraine was an easy win for him personally and politically. He has finally pushed back against NATO expansionism into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, and caused the opening of a new chapter in world affairs. He has made it clear to the world that the American century is over.

Even more extraordinary, he has a clean path to retaining that power at home. Anti-war protests broke out in many cities in Russia. God bless these protestors, their resolve, their courage, their love of peace.

If Putin is looking for a way to deal with them, he need only look at how Justin Trudeau dealt with the protests in Ottawa. Dox them, seize their bank accounts, tow their trucks and cars, and send in heavy armed military-style cops without badges and faces to clear the streets. Use facial recognition technology to follow up with people later, inquiring about their political loyalties.

The “free world” has lost the moral high ground to preach to the “unfree” world about rights, liberties, and democracy. For two years, most every government in the West experimented with new forms of servitude in the name of public health. They showed how emergency powers can be deployed to lock people in their homes, shut businesses, cancel church, close parks, ban travel, censor speech – massive attacks on essential freedoms all justified simply because the people in power said it was justified.

Further, the pandemic response revived the utility of nationalism (with travel bans and even vaccine approvals), class demarcations in policy (essential and nonessential businesses and workers), segregation and discrimination based on biology (vaccine passports), and the unquestioned hegemony of the administrative state over the whole of society. The experience further proved that there need be no limits to state ambition: even the absurd promise to eradicate a respiratory virus can serve as justification for a power grab.

Even the courts went silent, and the media could be relied upon to quell dissident voices and push out propaganda from the bureaucracies. Big Tech, once decried by the establishment for its libertarian ethos, also enlisted on the side of control, censoring and canceling accounts that raised doubts concerning the competence of the managerial elite.

What a lovely example to display to would-be authoritarians the world over! The pandemic response was brutal. It contradicted all law and tradition. It flew in the face of public-health science from the past. It was an enormous flop from a scientific point of view, of course. But the enterprise did create a political precedent that will resonate for decades. It firmly established that states can do what they want, when they want, provided the leadership maintains a posture of infallibility and the population is sufficiently fearful.

This was the West’s gift to Putin. Putin is now returning the favor. He has volunteered for the role of scapegoat for political establishments that are desperate for a change of topic, something that enables them to once again reclaim the vocabulary about freedom, no matter how implausible it might seem at first. Everyone knows that the best environment for controlling public opinion is the fog of war. All the better if it involves a far-away dictator with imperial ambitions.

The last two years have revealed to us what we would rather not have discovered, namely that freedom and rights, along with enlightened ideals and good science, are extraordinarily fragile. They are only guaranteed by a public that believes in them and is willing to stand up for them. When the cultural consensus in favor of liberty decays, terrible beasts are unleashed on the world.

There are two dates in my adult life that truly seemed darkly shattering of every enlightenment ideal. The first was March 12, 2020, when Donald Trump announced, under cover of emergency, the end of travel from Europe, the UK, and Australia, all in the name of virus avoidance. The second was February 24, 2022, when Vladimir Putin took the first major steps in the restoration of the 19th-century Russian empire, thumbing his nose at the once-mighty US empire and its pretensions to rule the world.

It’s a new chapter in a story of what could be a very dark age of barbarism – unless and until enlightenment ideals once again ascend to commanding heights.

The two reports below are from yesterday (Russia ready to negotiate with Ukraine), the 24th, and early this morning (Ukraine ready to discuss neutrality).

First, the former German intelligence officer at his site MoonofAlabama.org gives his impressions and information on troop movement from yesterday, the 24th:

Disarming Ukraine – Day 1

On February 15 Professor John J. Mearsheimer gave a talk (video) about the Ukraine crisis. He starts out (at 3min) by explaining who has caused it:

The United States, mainly, and its allies are responsible for this crisis. I recommend watching it in full.

Like me and many other analysts, Mearsheimer did not expect that a Russian move into the Ukraine would happen. Why the Russian government finally decided to take that step is not clear to me. I believe that Zelensky’s loose talk about acquiring nuclear weapons for the Ukraine was one of the decisive factors. Who told Zelensky to come up with that?

The Russian operation started with a volley of cruise missiles that destroyed air defense radars and missiles, military airports, ammunition depots and some military harbor. The followed ground attacks by armored forces from Belarus southward, from Russia westward and from Crimea northward. These progressed well, though some tanks got destroyed by anti-tank missile fire. The ground moves have air cover and heavy artillery moving up behind them.

This map does not show the progress of the operation but a likely operational plan the Russian military might have.

The plan seems to be to a. take Kiev, b. encircle the 60,000 strong Ukrainian force that was preparing to attack Donbas, and c. take the coast. 

A large fleet of helicopter with Russian parachuter took the Antonov / Hostomel airport some 20 miles from Kiev. They did not even bother with CNN filming them. (ER: the tweet of this is below) A fleet of transport planes from Russia will soon land there and deliver more forces.

The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl have been secured by Russian troops.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claims Russian aircraft have destroyed, 83 ground targets, 2 Ukrainian Su-27s, 2 Su-24s, 1 helicopter, 4 Bayraktar TB-2 drones. One Ukrainian Su-27 has landed in Romania. The pilot was probably not interested in getting killed.

The Ukrainian air-defenses, airforce, navy, most large command and control elements and depots have ceased to exist. The moral of its ground troops will be generally low, though some of the Nazi battalions may still be willing to fight.

It is not know yet how far the attack from the north has reached towards Kiev. The attack from Russian mainland is currently fighting around Kharkiv, the Ukraine’s second biggest city. The most successful attack was from Crimea as it has progressed significantly. The canal which provides water to Crimea, and had since 2014 been blocked by the Ukraine, has been liberated. Dnieper water is again flowing to the island.

Russia has so far only committed a relatively small ground force. More troops will follow when the first echelons make more progress. Russia has held back from using ballistic missiles and only used cruise missiles. That is probably a message to the ‘west’ that Russia could escalate if needed.  There has also been little use so far of Russia’s electronic warfare elements. Internet and telephone are working in all of the Ukraine except for Kharkiv, which seems to have Internet problems.

The Russian stock market is down but gold, oil and gas are up and Russia has so far lost zero money.

The U.S. is pushing its European ‘allies’ to commit economic suicide by sanctioning everything Russia. The U.S. should be more careful. Its is one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil, and its aircraft industry depends on titanium from Russia. Russia surely knows who is trying to hurt it the most and it surely knows how, and has the means to, hurt back.

Russian troops who’ve seized An airport in Kiev have let CNN film with them pic.twitter.com/8Z5cHUZkPx

— Murad Gazdiev (@MuradGazdiev) February 24, 2022

We highly recommend The Saker’s detailed, step by step take on the situation so far (up to the 24th). (‘Banderastan’ refers to followers of Stepan Bandera, historical far-right figure who was a Nazi sympathizer.) See

The collapse of Banderastan: tomorrow will be a crucial day.

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Russia ready to negotiate with Ukraine – Kremlin

RT

The Kremlin presents Kiev with two demands

FILE PHOTO. © AFP / Natalia KOLESNIKOVA

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Moscow is willing to negotiate terms of surrender with Kiev regarding the ongoing Russian military offensive currently taking place in Ukraine, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart, with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status and the promise of no weapons on its territory.

These are terms that, according to Peskov, would enable the achievement of the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, and eliminate what Russia currently views as a threat to the security of its state and people.

“The president formulated his vision of what we would expect from Ukraine in order for the so-called ‘red-line’ problems to be resolved. This is neutral status, and this is a refusal to deploy weapons,” Peskov clarified.

The press secretary added that Putin would determine the timing of the negotiations, but gave assurances that Russia would only engage “if the leadership of Ukraine is ready to talk about it.”

“The operation has its goals – they must be achieved. The president said that all decisions have been made, and the goals will be achieved,” Peskov continued, suggesting that, if Kiev were to agree to meet the demands, the current military attack on Ukraine could be called off.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Putin instigated a “special operation” in Ukraine, with the supposed aim of “securing the peace” in the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the Donbass region.

The leaders of the republics have made claims in recent days of attacks on their territory by the Ukrainian army.

Throughout the course of Thursday, the operation has become a full-scale assault, with Ukrainian airports, military bases, and cities, including the capital Kiev, all being damaged in air strikes in an attempt by Russia to cripple any Ukrainian military response.

Source

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Ukraine ready to discuss neutrality, Zelensky says

RT

The Ukrainian president says Kiev is left to fend for itself as NATO is “afraid” to give Kiev any guarantees

File photo: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, February 14, 2022. ©  AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

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Accusing the West of leaving Ukraine to face Moscow alone, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday he was not afraid to negotiate about ending the Russian “invasion,” but would need security guarantees to do so.

Speaking in the early hours of the morning from Kiev, Zelensky said he had reached out to “partners” in the West to tell them Ukraine’s fate was at stake.

“I asked them – are you with us?” Zelensky said. “They answered that they are with us, but they don’t want to take us into the alliance. I’ve asked 27 leaders of Europe, if Ukraine will be in NATO, I’ve asked them directly — all are afraid and did not respond” 

“We were left by ourselves. Who is ready to go to war for us? Honestly, I don’t see anybody. Who is ready to give Ukraine guarantees of NATO membership? Honestly, everybody is afraid,” the Ukrainian president added.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Thursday, with President Vladimir Putin declaring a special military operation to “demilitarize and de-nazify” Ukraine. Moscow has since told Kiev that it would consider negotiating with the Zelensky government if it agrees to discuss neutral status for the country, among other things.

In an address on Friday, Zelensky said that he is open to talk about Ukraine’s potential neutral status, but insisted that his country needs third party guarantees.

“We are not not afraid of Russia, we are not afraid to talk with Russia, talk about everything: security guarantees for our country and a neutral status. But we are not in NATO now – what security guarantees will we have? Which countries will give them?” he said, before adding that there should be talks that could bring an end to the Russian military offensive.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that “neutral status and rejection of hosting [offensive] weapons systems” are Putin’s “red lines” for Ukraine and that the ball was now in Kiev’s court.

Source

Trudeau’s COVID regime is a symptom of a much deeper problem that transcends political parties.

On February 8, the popular YouTuber Viva Frei came across a woman in downtown Ottawa with a large picture of her son taped to her car. She didn’t give her name, but she was eager to share her story.

“This is my son Jake,” she said, pointing to the picture. “He was 34 years old, he died January 1, new year’s day of 2021. His little girl turned a year old Christmas eve, he died at home of a fentanyl overdose, his cocaine was poisoned with fentanyl. He had been in recovery, he had been working, he had been having a really good year, one of the best years he’d had in a long time. And then these shut downs came along, and then no more work, no more gyms, no more AA meetings.”

Sadly, her story does not end there.

“Seven months later I lost my older son, 36 years old, the same thing, a fentanyl overdose. His job was gone, couldn’t leave the house. This is what Trudeau has done. This is what these lockdowns have done.”

From today’s #FreedomConvoy2022 in Ottawa. The tragedy of the lockdowns, @JustinTrudeau. pic.twitter.com/0XzlXK15t3

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) February 9, 2022

This woman’s story is a vivid reminder of the tragic toll lockdowns have taken, a toll that has all too often been invisible. But while stories like hers were largely overlooked in the past, the Canadian Freedom Convoy is determined to bring them to light. In recent weeks, thousands of people have flocked to Ottawa, each with their own personal stories of how lockdowns and vaccine mandates have impacted their lives. Some have been merely inconvenienced. Others have lost jobs, family members, everything.

Canada’s Great Smear Campaign

In light of these losses, one might expect a degree of sympathy from those who sit in the ivory tower that is Parliament Hill. Unfortunately, sympathy has not been forthcoming, at least not from Trudeau and his caucus. Instead, Trudeau described the protestors as a “small fringe minority” who are “holding unacceptable views,” and later referred to them as “a few people shouting and waving swastikas.”

The media, for their part, haven’t been much better. Indeed, the disconnect between the establishment narrative and the truth on the ground is about as stark as it gets. This Globe and Mail Op-Ed, for instance, argues that “the alt-right has weaponized ‘freedom’ to undermine democracy.” Yes, that’s an actual article about the trucker protests. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has called the convoy a “stunt,” and numerous other outlets have been similarly disparaging of the movement.

It’s hard to say whether the mainstream narrative is wrong merely out of ignorance or whether it’s intentional propaganda. Most likely, it’s some combination of the two. Either way, the good news is that more and more people seem to be waking up and developing a very justified cynicism toward politicians and corporate media.

We Don’t Have a Trudeau Problem, We Have a Government Problem

As heartening as it is to see people standing up for freedom, the sad reality is that government interference in our lives has become a regular occurrence in recent decades. Even if we successfully protest certain measures, governments always seem to come up with new excuses to raise taxes, burden us with red tape, and restrict civil liberties.

Unfortunately, most political movements opposing these kinds of measures only target the administration of the day and not the system itself. The trucker protest is no exception. Of course, Trudeau has been particularly overbearing. But the truth is, all government power is a threat to freedom—not just when it pertains to COVID, and not just when it’s wielded by Trudeau. When the government keeps trampling on freedom no matter how many times it gets new management, there comes a point where one must consider the possibility that the problem goes deeper than the current management.

So if new leadership won’t stop the State from violating liberty, perhaps a new voting system is needed, or even a new form of government? It’s an interesting idea, but as Murray Rothbard points out in his essay Anatomy of the State, even that is unlikely to solve the problem.

“Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries,” Rothbard writes, “of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check. The problem of the State is evidently as far from solution as ever. Perhaps new paths of inquiry must be explored, if the successful, final solution of the State question is ever to be attained.”

Rothbard’s point is hard to swallow, but it’s worth taking seriously. If we want true, lasting freedom, it’s going to require genuine structural change. The system we have is broken. The “checks and balances” we thought would protect our freedoms aren’t working. If the past two years haven’t made that clear, I don’t know what will.

So rather than seeking salvation in Constitutions, Charters, politicians, and judiciaries, we need to step back and reevaluate the system as a whole. We need to take this movement as an opportunity, not just to call out Trudeau and end the COVID regime, but to rethink the principles upon which this country is founded.

“You don’t believe in the principle of indivisible security? Fine. Now we dictate the security rhythm.”

History will register that the birth of the baby twins – Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – only a few hours before 2/22/22, was simultaneous to the birth of the real, 21^st century multipolar world.

As my columns have stressed for a few years now, Vladimir Putin has been carefully nurturing his inner Sun Tzu. And now it’s all in the open: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

The thunderbolt was months in the process of being meticulously polished. To paraphrase Lenin, who “created Ukraine” (copyright Putin), we did live many decades in only these past few days. It all started with the detailed demands of security guarantees sent to the Americans, which Moscow knew would be rejected. Then there was the Russia-China joint statement at the start of the Winter Olympics – which codifies not only the strategic partnership but also the key tenets of the multipolar world.

The culmination was a stunning, nearly one hour-long address to the nation by Putin shortly after the Russian Security Council live session deliberating on the request for independence by the DPR and the LPR

A few hours later, at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya precisely outlined why the recognition of the baby twins does not bury the Minsk agreements.

The baby twins actually declared their independence in May 2014. In 2015 they signed the Minsk agreements as one of the interested parties. Theoretically they could even be back within Ukraine if Kiev would ever decide to respect the agreements, which will never happen because the U.S. has vetoed it since 2015. Moreover, the people of Donbass do not want to be subjected to a regime harboring neo-Nazis.

As Nebenzya outlined, “I would like to remind you that at the time of the conclusion of the Minsk agreements, the LPR and DPR had already declared independence. The fact that Russia today recognized it does not change the composition of the parties to the Minsk agreements, since Russia is not one (…) Another thing is that the Minsk agreements have long been openly sabotaged by Ukraine under the auspices of our Western colleagues. Now we see that many colleagues want to sign that the Minsk agreements are dead. But this is not the case (…) We are still open to diplomacy, but we do not intend to allow a new bloody massacre in the Donbass.”

And here’s the clincher, directly addressing imperial support for the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass: “The main task of our decision [on recognizing independence] was to preserve and protect these lives. This is more important than all your threats.”

There you go: Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a concept invented by the Americans to launch wars, used by Russia for preventing one.

That certified nullity, German chancellor Scholz, deriding Putin’s characterization of a genocide in Donbass as “laughable”, was a decisive factor in the birth of the baby wins. Putin, in his address to the nation, especially took time to detail the Odessa massacre: “We cannot but shudder when we remember about the situation in Odessa, when people were burned alive (…) And those criminals who did this, they are not punished (…) But we know their names, and we will do everything to punish them (…) and to bring them to justice.”

What about China?

Geopolitically, in Eurasian terms, two huge questions stand out: the role of the CSTO and the response from China.

If we look at the Article 19, Chapter VI of the CSTO charter, we learn that, “any state sharing the goals and principles of the Organization and being ready to undertake the obligations containing in this Charter and other international treaties and resolutions effective within the framework of the Organization may become a member of the Organization.”

That would open the door for the baby twins, as soon as they have finalized all the bureaucratic endeavors pertaining to new, independent nations, to request CSTO membership. Incidentally, CSTO secretary-general Pashinian has already gone to Moscow to discuss it.

China is a way more complex proposition. One of the key tenets of Beijing’s foreign policy is the fight against separatism – embedded in the foundation of the SCO. So Beijing cannot possibly recognize the baby twins, or what would amount to Novorossiya – yes, Putin did pronounce the magic word – before Kiev itself does or, a serious possibility, completely disintegrates.

The Foreign Ministry so far has been extremely cautious. Wang Yi has reiterated “China’s long-standing position that the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected, and the purposes & principles of the UN Charter must be upheld.”

Further on down the road, presumably after some serious exchanges between Wang Yi and Lavrov, China can always find myriad ways to unofficially help the baby twins – including advancing BRI-related connectivity and sustainable development projects.

As for Kiev disintegration, that’s directly linked to Moscow demanding the immediate stop of the mini-blitzkrieg against Donbass, otherwise they will bear full responsibility. Yes, regime stalwarts will be hunted and punished – complete with a possible War Crimes Tribunal. No wonder all sorts of oligarchic/political rats, big and small, are scurrying away, to Lviv, Poland and the UK.

The Munich effect

The intervention of all 12 members at the Security Council session, combined with Putin’s address to the nation was the stuff of gripping geopolitical drama. Putin’s body language and the look in his eyes testified to the immense gravity of the moment – and it all came to the forefront when he embarked in a concise history lesson spanning a century.

Barely containing his anger at the countless ways Russia has been vilified by the West, and taking no prisoners when referring to communism, what mostly stood out was the clear-cut rendition of the insurmountable antagonism between the Anglo-American islands and the civilizational Heartland – or the clash between maritime powers and land powers. That Eurasia classic was the bulk of his exposition: the recognition of the baby twins took less than three minutes.

The Munich Security Conference, this past weekend, had made it all so explicit. Munich, as terrifying as it was in terms of a congregation of headless chickens posing as eagles, at least confirmed everything is in the open.

The enemy is Russia. NATO infinite expansion – to outer space – is against Russia. And then we had a parade of add-on threats: no disarmament in Eastern Europe, cutting off the Russian economy from the EU, end of Nord Stream 2, Ukraine in NATO, world order built on “universal liberal values”.

Munich spelled out No Compromise Whatsoever – which was exactly what Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev and co. expected, the warmongering rhetoric burying any meaningful discussion of migration, inflation, cyber wars, the European energy crisis and, of course, the only thing that matters for the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, as defined by Ray McGovern): let’s milk this Eurotrash lot for untold billions in new contracts, let’s isolate Russia, let’s destroy Nord Stream 2 to sell them our ultra expensive LNG, let’s keep them on a leash – forever.

So actually it’s not even war against Russia: the $30 trillion-indebted Empire with a woke military attached simply could not afford it. Not to mention the certified freak out in case they receive a phone call from Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Zircon : cue to the spectacular Russian display of “military and technical” superiority, hypersonic and otherwise – staged, irony of ironies, in synch with the circus in Munich.

What we have here is so lame: just a lowlife offer-you-can’t-refuse racket to be inflicted on the EU.

The Indivisible Security dance

The rabid Munich “No Compromise” show; the imperially-ordered Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg against Donbass; and the role of the U.S. Lack of Intelligence Community – an Andrei Martyanov-coined howler – altogether sealed the deal for the Security Council deliberations and Putin’s decision.

Considering the ideological stupidity of the current Brussels gang – Stoltenberg, von der Leyen, Borrell –, incapable of understanding even basic economics, the fact remains that the EU without Russian energy is doomed. Martyanov stresses the algorithm: Russia can afford the break up with Europe. Europe cannot. The U.S. just wants to collect. And we’re not even talking about the dire, incoming ramifications of the systemic crisis across NATOstan.

Even as Moscow plays a very long, calculated game, as it stands that does not necessarily mean that Russia will be “winning” the baby twins while “losing” Europe. Russia’s strategic swing repeatedly baffles the Atlanticist combo. The U.S. lack of intelligence community was predicting a Russian “aggression” every other day – and still is. Instead they got the baby twins as the latest independent republics of the Global South.

Even before Munich, the Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg, and the recognition of the baby twins, Moscow had again warned it may respond with “military and technical measures” to ensure its own security after the U.S. and NATO blatantly ignored key points from its proposal for a long-term European security architecture, and instead “cherry-picked” issues from a package deal.

Moscow will not let the Americans run away from the by now notorious 10-page Russian response. Putin, addressing the Stavka, had already warned “we are in a situation (…) where we are forced to resolve it.” Which bring us to what John Helmer niftly qualified as Russia’s black box defense. The beauty is no one knows what’s inside the black box.

Enter, once again, the “military-technical measures” that will be “reciprocal” (Putin) to what U.S. and NATOstan are already deploying against Russia. They won’t necessarily be implemented in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, in the airspace above Donbass, even in cyberspace. It could be anywhere – from the Syrian theater to Latin America.

Surprise! That’s what strategic ambivalence, ambiguity, or – let’s get down to the rhythm – swing is all about. You don’t believe in the principle of indivisible security? Fine. Now we dictate the security rhythm. You’re not gonna stop deploying nuclear weapons outside your territory? Fine. Here’s some reciprocity. You’re not gonna accept legally binding guarantees of our security? Fine. Meet our “military-technical” measures.

There is no version of eminent domain that coincides with liberty. On the contrary, the two ideas are antithetical to each other. As a champion of liberty, John Locke stated in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, “For I have truly no Property in that, which another can by right take from me, when he pleases against my Consent.”

In other words, if the government can take your property from you without your consent — even if they are paying you for it — then you don’t really have a right to own private property at all.

The deeper debate about whether the idea of private property still exists at all in a country where property taxes, construction regulations, and other limitations are demanded is one best saved for its own discussion. For now, we’ll stick with the commonly held assumption that private property does exist.

Under that assumption, we can move a few years forward from Locke’s writings and quote the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a part of what we know as the Bill of Rights, which states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable … seizures, shall not be violated”.

However, the very next amendment goes on to say that “private property” shall not be taken for “public use” without “just compensation.” Therefore, the idea of eminent domain is Constitutional, even if it still seems antithetical to liberty.

Leaving any argument about personal liberty or the foundations of our country aside, a much older idea from a much higher Authority lays plain the wrongfulness of eminent domain: Thou shalt not steal.

Despite any philosophical reasoning, eminent domain remains the law of the land. The essence of the outrageous but accepted practice is that a government — federal, state or local body — may confiscate land from individuals who legally own it, usually compensating them with at least the current market value of the property, for public needs.

In some cases, it is even more outrageous: The land is given over to private developers for various reasons. The justifications are always that the confiscation is for the greater good of the public. The original landowner has no legal recourse against the actions. That doesn’t sound like the land of the free, does it?

Recent examples from Memphis, St. Louis and North Carolina clearly show that the threat of eminent domain is alive and well in America.

Memphis

A privately owned mall in a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, called Raleigh has had issues with crime and gangs over recent years. The city began plans to demolish part of the mall and make it a “town center” last year, including moving a police precinct and a library branch onto the land.

The owners of the mall said that they hadn’t been contacted by the city about the plans, and they refuse to sell part of the property to the city. Now the city has begun eminent domain proceedings to take the property from them. The reason is supposedly because of the crime issues. The question is: If the police can’t keep an area safe without seizing property, should residents of Memphis expect new police precincts to start popping up in every neighborhood area with a crime problem – and land in those areas seized, too?

St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri, is considering using eminent domain to oust both a private developer and individual homeowners from a swath of property in order to retain the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s facility within city borders. The agency, which provides mapping and satellite support for the military, employs 3,000 people and brings in an estimated $2.4 million in annual earnings taxes, although it is exempt from property taxes because it is operated by the federal government.

The agency is moving because it needs a bigger facility, but the area the city wants used is partly occupied. Although there is a lot of abandoned and demolished space in the area, there are still several long-time homeowners who refuse to give up their land and move. The remaining property is owned by a private developer, who has pledged not to use eminent domain against the remaining residents.

In response, the city is proposing using eminent domain against both the homeowners and the developer. Their tax revenue losses apparently outweigh the property rights of the land owners.

North Carolina

The North Carolina House passed a bill on Feb. 10 that would prevent government from using eminent domain to seize property and then sell it to a private developer. Only “public use” cases would be allowed. The problem: The same measure has passed the house on at least four other occasions in the past, only to be shut down in the state Senate each time.

At least this measure attempts to rein in the expansion of eminent domain’s scope, returning it to the description given in the Fifth Amendment’s language. Someone with a high level of cynicism might even argue that the measure is anti-private sector by cutting all private parties out of the picture and keeping all of the benefits in government hands.

The eminent domain playground is one we would do best to only play in when absolutely necessary, because the path forward is well-known. The destruction and abolition of private property is one of Marx’s 10 planks of Communism espoused in the Communist Manifesto. Turning over seized private property to a business friendly with the government is a staple of fascism. Either way, individual liberty and rights are sacrificed in the name of the “public good.”