[ZeroHedge] It appears that somehow the definition of emergency now includes making a profit at the expense of American consumers because sooner or later a real emergency will hit and then it will be too late, while easing the true energy emergency over in Europe.
According to Matt Smith, oil analyst at commodity data firm Kpler, this is the first export of SPR crude since last November. Which means the oil was apportioned from Biden's shock SPR release.
One wonders what is behind Biden's decision to make US emergency SPR oil available across the Atlantic; one can only hope that it doesn't mean that in the coming midterms mail in ballots will also be made available to Europeans...
Posted by: Skidmark ||
04/19/2022 06:24 ||
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#1
Either the SPR will eventually run dry as a metaphor for this entire administration or they are continuously replenishing the supply and the releases are just empty and false gestures … which would be another metaphor for this administration. If they are discovered to be simultaneously filling and emptying the reserve, the administration will argue that the policy is effective in lowering gas prices. Brian Stelter will back them up,
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/19/2022 12:29 Comments ||
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#2
Oil is fungible. So the net effect of 1) sending oil to Europe, and 2) releasing oil from the SPR — or the other way round — gives rise to the shocking Zero Hedge headline. But I suspect the White House team has not made the connection between their two actions, as they aren’t nearly as intelligent as they fondly imagine.
[NYPOST] In the near week since Frank James’ alleged Brooklyn subway attack, it’s become accepted wisdom that New York City’s or America’s social services system failed him — and us. Yet no one has shown any way in which social services could have stopped this attack. What we have is what it looks like: a bad guy who intelligently planned and executed a bad thing.
After the mass shooting, City Councilwoman Alexa Avilés and Assemblywoman Marcela Mitaynes, who represent Sunset Park, said that it showed how "we need investments in social services — housing, healthcare and education." Politico wondered "What Brooklyn’s subway shooting reveals about the state of mental health care."
[Aljazeera] Johannesburg, South Africa — A group of climate change organisations have filed criminal complaints against the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and a number of prominent cabinet ministers, accusing the government officials of "unlawful negligence" by failing to take "practical action to address the climate crisis."
The move comes as nearly 400 people have been reported dead in KwaZulu Natal province, where a subtropical storm, Issa, also destroyed buildings, highways and infrastructure.
In documents submitted to the South African Police Services on Thursday, the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM) wants the government to be found guilty of "culpable homicide" for its acts of omission to "prevent further emissions and to protect the vulnerable from increased inequality and poverty."
CJCM, a coalition of several climate change activists and lobby groups from across the country, is arguing that the South African government is directly responsible for the deaths in KwaZulu Natal.
"We filed a criminal complaint in order to test the strength of our criminal justice system and our democracy," said Vishwas Satgar, the board chairperson of Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre, a member of the CJCM alliance. "It is the cheaper route than a civil case, and we have galvanised support from legal persons all over the country who agree that it is time to link the climate crisis to the rule of the justice system."
#1
This must be brought under control at the global level. International courts and governance are obviously the key. Under-represented nations and peoples will suffer.
[ZERO] During the COVID-19 pandemic, stringent measures such as mandatory masking, vaccination, and "quarantining healthy populations" have turned the United States into a "Biomedical Security State," Dr. Aaron Kheriaty told EpochTV’s "American Thought Leaders" program on April 9.
"This welding of public health with digital technologies of surveillance and control and the police powers of the state allows for intrusions on our privacy, on our bodily autonomy, that are unprecedented in history," said Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist.
Kheriaty, chief of medical ethics at the Unity Project and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, added that a "probably north of 70 percent of Americans still got COVID in spite of almost a year of lockdowns," and that the lockdowns have essentially brought on "massive collateral damage" in the form of a mental health crisis.
He cited the pre-pandemic opioid crisis accounting for a total of 70,630 drug overdose deaths in 2019 in the United States, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) The lockdown has only "poured gasoline on [the] fire" of the existing drug overdose crisis, resulting in the skyrocketing of drug overdose deaths to over 100,000 last year, said Kheriaty.
An August 2021 study published on Pub Med found that "state lockdown policies precede greater mental health symptoms," and that many "non-heavy drinkers" turned to alcohol during lockdowns as a coping mechanism for "anxiety and depressive symptoms."
#4
Anyone else get a notice that in the near future you can no longer 7 digit dial someone, but must 10 digit dial "In order to support a Suicide Hotline."?
Why would that be; last I smelled bullshit this thick was downwind of a feed yard with 1" of rain followed quickly by a slight breeze with 110F.
Local use land lines having to connect to The Big Hub?
#6
Thank you Beavis. I still don't understand the in order to give access to the Suicide Hotline; guess it could be some wank trying to tie new policy to hot topic.
I have noted that tradition and digital medias are really starting to roll out depression counseling ads of many different colors. I believe Rantburg called this about week 8 of 2 weeks to flatten the curve, if taken as long-term policy. Wonder how many edge-walking teens who just needed a couple years to grow up, were pushed off the edge and are now long term damaged.
#8
We are anticipating a rather large population increase over the next few years; suppose a mental health hotline sounds better than Last's Month's Border Jumpers.
(and if you think the local 1st gen Immigrants are happy, whoa now. Nevermind the 2nd and especially 3rd.)
#9
In the Cincinnati tri-state area (SW Ohio - Northern Kentucky- Eastern Indiana) they added another area code for new users and required us to dial ten digit numbers about two decades ago. Apparently there’s been talk about a national suicide hotline in recent months, but I completely missed it. But given that it’s 988, analogous to 911 for local fire and police, I don’t see why the area code matters.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[RusOnline] The nationalists who settled at the Azovstal plant will be destroyed by thermobaric charges. This was reported by the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" with reference to its sources.
“As it became known, ground troops will not storm cellars with militants. The corridors there are narrow, they are stuffed with mines and are well shot through. Therefore, the entire area of the plant will first be smashed with FAB-3000 high-explosive aerial bombs, which will be dropped by Tu-22M3 long-range supersonic bombers. Someone in Russia is gonna be in big trouble over this bit of legerdemain.
Such bombs will violate the integrity of the basement. And then they will start burning the enemy with thermobaric charges from the TOS-1A Solntsepek,” Komsomolskaya Pravda writes. It is noted that the system works on the principle of a flamethrower.
First, the projectile breaks through the ceiling and explodes in the room, which leads to the spraying of the thermobaric mixture.
After this, a second explosion occurs, from which the mixture ignites.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/19/2022 00:00 ||
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[8 views]
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#1
I have seen videos of the Azov fighters. They are very spread out and are constantly infiltrating Russian lines wreaking havoc.
For example:
https://funker530.com/video/nsfw-azov-battalion-brutally-ambushes-russian-troops/
#6
and now Russian terror, torture, rape and murder?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2022 6:30 Comments ||
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#7
This is coming from Komsomolskaya Pravda which used to be an 'official' paper. Makes me wonder if this intimate discussion of future plans is meant to encourage the Ukr troops to surrender.
The fighting is in a bombed-out, post-apocalyptic factory complex - a great place to defend from. The defenders are surrounded with no hope of relief or resupply. A ground attack is suicidal. More shelling just makes more wreckage to hide behind. It would be convenient if the defenders surrendered. Better press for the Russians, too.
#8
Kreminna has fallen:
"Russian invading forces have taken control of the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the city," the regional governor said on Tuesday
Slovyansk will fall next
Mariupol's steel factory will be bombed to rubble with bunker busters
The armed forces of the Russian Federation on April 19 at 14:00 opened a humanitarian corridor for the withdrawal of Ukrainian soldiers and militants who voluntarily laid down their arms from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. This was reported in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation:
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] 1. Mariupol.
After an intense bombardment, the cleansing of Azovstal began. The cleansing is also continuing in the Primorsky region, where individual groups of the enemy are still resisting. Plant them. Ilyich is completely cleared. In fact, it remains to clean up Azovstal.
2. Nikolaev.
Fights of medium intensity in the countryside between Nikolaev and Kherson, the parties are not conducting large-scale offensive operations. On both sides, there is an accumulation of forces for subsequent actions.
3. Odessa.
No significant changes. The enemy continues to announce the threat of landing, but the Black Sea Fleet rather prefers to create such a threat than to implement it, keeping part of the enemy forces near Odessa.
4. Zaporozhye.
On the front line Kamenskoye-Orekhov-Gulyaipole without changes. To the east of Gulyaipol, according to the statements of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there has been an advance of the RF Armed Forces, bypassing Gulyaipol. AFU lost the village of Malinovka.
5. Novomikhailovka—Ugledar—Velikaya Novoselka.
Significant progress of the RF Armed Forces and the DPR army was not reported. Basically, there is a fire defeat of enemy forces.
6. Marinka.
No significant changes. So far, it has not been possible to go beyond the waste heap of the DPR army.
7. Avdievka.
In the industrial complex of Avdiivka itself, there are no changes. To the north of Avdievka, fighting continues in the area of Novobakhmutovka and in the area of Troitsky. Promotion to New York has not yet been noted.
8. LPR.
The city of Kremennaya was taken. There is also a promotion in Popasna and its environs. In Frontier fighting on the southern outskirts of the city. Severodonetsk and Lysichansk are unchanged.
9. Izyum.
The RF Armed Forces are fighting in the direction of Barvenkovo and Slavyansk. Part of the territory to the northeast of Oskol has been cleared. The enemy is trying to counterattack the Izyum grouping in order to tie down its offensive activity. The combat here is super intense. The Armed Forces of Ukraine suffer heavy losses in people and equipment.
10. Kharkov.
No significant changes. As before, fighting north of the city and large-scale artillery duels that destroy the villages north of Kharkov and the northern outskirts of Kharkov. Also, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to be active in the Chuguev area in order to try to strain the flank of the Izyum group.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine declare that the RF Armed Forces have begun the 2nd phase of the operation in Donbas. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have not yet officially announced this. However, today there has been a certain movement, plus the attacks on the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the military infrastructure of Ukraine are on the rise.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/19/2022 00:00 ||
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#2
Nukes, nukes, nukes. Notice how the Russians are enjoying the fact they can unleash nukes all over the world? Putin has gone rogue, he needs to betaken out by his own countrymen before he goes completely off the rails.
[ConservativeTreehouse] While no media have a good track record of outlining the conflict in Ukraine, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor has the most consistent perspective that reconciles what little factual information is visible with the reality on the ground.
In this recent interview, Macgregor notes the Russian operation is currently focused on securing the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, where fighting has been taking place since 2014. During an earlier interview on CNN, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy noted the largest and most experienced elements of the Ukrainian army are located in this region. According to Zelenskyy, approximately 44,000 Ukrainian troops are there; oddly, Zelenskyy seemed to concede that he has no control over what’s happening there.
During this segment, Macgregor notes the current Russian objective is to encircle those eastern Ukraine forces, cut them off from western supply lines, and then slowly and methodically eliminate them – while separating them from Russian speaking citizens in the region. Macgregor notes a particular concern once those Ukraine forces are eliminated. WATCH:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ...the GOP house majority whip. He replaces Eric Cantor, who got whupped because his politix are like Kevin McCarthy's... said the Russian invasion of Ukraine should serve as a "lesson" for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, arguing President Joe Biden ...... 46th president of the U.S., who gives the term geriatric a bad name. He blames Afghans for losing Afghanistan....... needs to act sooner on beefing up Taiwan’s military so it can have a better chance of defending itself.
During an Easter morning appearance on "Fox News Sunday," McCarthy, R-Calif., slammed the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft ...the collection of boodlers, grifters, hangers-on, and self-proclaimed experts affiliated with the Biden Crime Family. Entrusted with an entire nation as the result of a suspicious election, they set about happily implementing stuff they absorbed in college, all of which blew up and splattered the rest of us... for being too slow to provide arms to Ukraine ahead of the invasion.
"This is going to get stronger and rougher," McCarthy said. "And what really needs to happen is, Ukraine is not asking for American men and women to fight. All they're asking for is the weapons to defend themselves. If we would have taken those actions earlier, instead of waiting until after Russia invaded, they probably never would have invaded had we done that sooner."
#1
U.S. foreign policy and the conventional wisdom of the elite class was that if the West engaged with the CCP, it would become more liberal and less repressive of its own people, and it was this thinking that allowed the CCP to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the end of 2001.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall it should have been apparent that the best way to deal with China was the same way we dealt the the Soviet Union. But it seems a number of senators and corporate leaders were smelling money.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/19/2022 12:43 Comments ||
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[Dawn] THE inevitable has happened. Pakistain on Sunday condemned "Lions of Islam operating with impunity from Afghan soil to carry out activities in Pakistain".
This is the strongest possible public statement from Islamabad and a rebuke to the hard-line regime in Kabul, that has been conveniently looking the other way as the outlawed TTP continue to carry out ferocious attacks on Pak soil.
Pakistain’s demand for "stern’ Afghan action against the TTP comes amid reports of a significant increase in cross-border attacks. In the past week alone, the TTP carried out multiple attacks in North and South Wazoo districts and Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... , resulting in the martyrdom of several soldiers and coppers. There were also reports, originating from Kabul, that spoke of Pakistain launching retaliatory strikes on suspected TTP bases in Khost and Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... s, though neither the ISPR nor the Foreign Office has confirmed them. One report from Kabul, however, did mention Pakistain’s ambassador to Afghanistan having been summoned on the matter and given a démarche.
Islamabad’s condemnation of the increase in terrorist activities from across the border and Kabul’s protest over the alleged air strikes expose the friction between the two countries. Pakistain has been exercising maximum restraint since the Afghan Taliban ...Arabic for students... took control of Kabul last August.
Contrary to their claims and Pakistain’s optimism that the new regime would not allow Afghan soil to be used against any country, there has been a sharp uptick in attacks, all originating from Afghanistan. According to official figures, 119 Pak officers and soldiers laid down their lives while battling the scourge from mid-August till last month. This is simply shocking.
For too long, the US-led Western bloc considered the Afghan Taliban to be proxies furthering Islamabad’s interests in Afghanistan. Indeed, there were many in Pakistain too who celebrated the ’Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s’ second ascension to power, including those who distanced themselves from the war on terror, saying it was not Pakistain’s war. This was despite warnings that the TTP and the Islamic Emirate were, in fact, two faces of the same coin.
With Pakistain’s casualties mounting in the renewed war against terrorism, that narrative has died down, or so it seems at the moment. Pakistain’s open and blunt condemnation, and its demand that the Afghan Taliban contain the TTP, is one such indication. There is, however, no sign from across the border that Kabul is paying heed.
It is time that Pakistain used all available diplomatic and economic resources at its disposal to make it absolutely plain to Kabul that it cannot get away with allowing Afghanistan’s territory to be used by bully boyz to spread terrorism in the region. The pressure on the Afghan Taliban must be increased. Afghanistan’s rulers must also be made to realise that they cannot absolve themselves of the responsibility of the attacks by asking Islamabad to engage with the Pak bully boyz based in Afghanistan.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
/\ No additional explanation should be necessary. 
[ZERO] During the COVID-19 pandemic, stringent measures such as mandatory masking, vaccination, and "quarantining healthy populations" have turned the United States into a "Biomedical Security State," Dr. Aaron Kheriaty told EpochTV’s "American Thought Leaders" program on April 9.
"Medical ethics"...? Will someone define this in layman's terms please? I believe I've missed something. 
...the collection of boodlers, grifters, hangers-on, and self-proclaimed 
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] 
...Arabic for 
