Sunday, June 25, 2023

The Russian Federation remains humanity’s only hope

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“All of life has an interest in a Russia too strong to be attacked or provoked as a strong Russia is the only way to curtail the Western aggression.…March 8, 2019

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“All of life has an interest in a Russia too strong to be attacked or provoked as a strong Russia is the only way to curtail the Western aggression that is leading to nuclear war.­…As far as we can tell, the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is so brainwashed by neoliberal economics that their minds are closed to correct policies. The failure of Russian economic leadership imposes far more costs on the Russian economy than do Washington’s sanctions. Intellectual leadership is weak with many in the intellectual class favoring integration with the West rather than with the East.”

3/8/19, Is Neoliberalism Killing Russia?“ foreignpolicyjournal.com, Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Hudson

“Russia is experiencing capital outflows due to the Russian private sector’s repayment of loans to Western creditors. Russia has experienced over $25 billion a year of capital outflows since the early 1990s, accumulating to over a trillion dollars. This money could have been invested in Russia itself to raise the productivity and living standards of its citizens. The outflow puts the ruble under pressure, and the interest payments draw money out of the country away from Russian uses.  If it were not for these outflows, the value of the ruble and Russian wages would be higher.

The US sanctions give Russians every reason not to repay their foreign loans; yet Russians continue to enable their own exploitation by foreigners, as neoliberal economists have told them that there is no alternative.

Russia’s economic problems are due to the looting of the country during the Yeltsin years, to the imposition of neoliberal economics by the Americans, and to financialization as a result of the privatizations.

Russia’s stock market became the darling of the West in the mid-1990s as underpriced mining, oil and infrastructure were sold for a fraction of their value to foreigners, thus transferring Russian income streams abroad instead of leaving the income to be invested in Russia. In effect, Russians were told that the way for their country to get rich was to let kleptocrats, oligarchs, and their U.S. and British stock brokers make hundreds of billions of dollars by privatizing Russia’s public domain.

Washington took advantage of the gullible and trusting Yeltsin government to do as much political and economic damage as possible to Russia. The country was torn apart.  Historic parts of Russia such as Ukraine were split off into separate countries.  Washington even insisted that Crimea, long a part of Russia and the country’s warm water port, was retained by Ukraine when the Soviet Union was dismembered.

People’s savings (called the “overhang”) were wiped out with hyperinflation. Privatization was not accompanied by new investment. The economy was not industrialized, but financialized. The proceeds from privatization were deposited by the Russian government in private banks where the money was used to privatize more Russian assets. The banking system thus served to finance the transfer of ownership, not to fund new investment, and the proceeds were transferred abroad. Russia was turned into a financial colony in which proconsuls created wealth at the top.

Today privatization continues in the de facto privatization of public assets, such as charging fees for use of federal highways.  As the Russian economic profession has been brainwashed by the Americans, the country is devoid of economic leadership.

We have pointed out on more than one occasion that it is nonsensical for Russia to indebt itself by borrowing abroad in order to finance investments. The Russians were sold a bill of goods that the central bank cannot issue rubles unless the rubles are backed by dollars.  This advice served to prevent Russia from using its own central bank to fund public infrastructure and private investment projects by issuing rubles.  In other words, Russia might as well not have a central bank.

Apparently, Russian economists do not understand that Russia does not spend borrowed foreign currencies inside Russia. If Russia takes a foreign loan, the borrowed money goes into central bank reserves. The central bank then issues the ruble equivalent to be spent on the project, and the cost of the project goes up by the pointless interest paid to the foreign lender.

As far as we can tell, the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is so brainwashed by neoliberal economics that their minds are closed to correct policies. The failure of Russian economic leadership imposes far more costs on the Russian economy than do Washington’s sanctions.

Intellectual leadership is weak with many in the intellectual class favoring integration with the West rather than with the East. To be part of the West has been an important goal since Peter the First and Catherine the Great, and the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists cannot let go of the ancient goal.

This goal no longer makes sense. Not only does it imply Russian vassalage,

but also Europe is no longer the center of power.

The East is rising, and China is the center and will be until the Chinese destroy themselves by copying the Western neoliberal policy of financializing the economy.

Although Putin is a leader and has a sense of Russian purpose, many officials use their office not in service to Russia but in service to their own wealth, much of which is held abroad. Corruption and embezzlement seem to be the purpose of many office holders. Scandals abound among members of government and reflect badly on Putin and Medvedev.

The Russian government’s popularity was at a peak when the government showed it had the intelligence and will to reincorporate Crimea into Russia. However, the Russian government, hoping to reassure Washington and Europe, refused the requests of the Luhansk and Donetsk republics to be reincorporated into Russia. Russian nationalists, the majority of the population, saw this as kowtowing to the West. 

Moreover, the Russian government’s decision has resulted in Ukraine’s ongoing military assault on the breakaway republics and to the arming of Ukraine by the West.  Instead of acting decisively, the

Russian government

enabled the continuation of conflict that can be exploited by Washington.

The Russian people understand this even if the government does not.

By failing to show firmness, the Russian government encourages the crony system of oligarchs who want a government that they can use for their narrow interests. Their interests include participating in the system of Western plunder known as “globalism.” These client elites of the West oppose a powerful Russian state that could assert itself on the world stage and offer an alternative policy to the West’s policy of plunder.  The influence of this narrow interest group on government policy indicates that the Russian government is compromised.

Putin is trying to break free of the West’s grip by directing Russia’s economic orientation to the East. His effort is helped by the American sanctions. But Russia remains sufficiently mired in the Western system to be vulnerable to sanctions and is only slowly extracting itself.

Various aspects of Russia’s difficulties and transformation into a power with a foot in both West and East are discussed by commentators. What goes unacknowledged is that Russian economic policy is constrained—indeed, crippled—by the neoliberal brainwashing given to Russian economists by the Americans in the 1990s.  Consequently, Russia is enfeebled by an economic policy that encourages privatization and foreign ownership, and by financialization of economic rents, that is, of income streams that do not result from productive investment but from such factors as location and rise in value due to public infrastructure development, such as a road built across a property. In a financialized economy credit is used to transfer property ownership instead of to finance new plant and equipment and construction of infrastructure.

The Russian government and central bank have been blinded to the fact that Russian infrastructure projects and private investment are not dependent on borrowing dollars abroad or by acquiring dollars by selling Russian assets to foreigners. Such projects can be financed by ruble creation by the Russian central bank. Money that flows into productive projects that raise output is not inflationary. Generally speaking, such projects lower costs.

For Russia to succeed, Russia needs an economic re-education and a government that finds its footing in Russian nationalism

and discourages Western provocations with firmer responses.

It is our view that the Western world, indeed all of life, has an interest in a Russia too strong to be attacked or provoked as a strong Russia is the only way to curtail the Western aggression that is leading to nuclear war.­”

“This article was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.org on March 1, 2019.”

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Added: Page One, NY Times, 10/4/1993:

10/4/1993, President Yeltsin of democratic Russia dissolves Parliament, sends military and tanks, attacks Russian Parliament to remove political opponents:

10/4/1993, NY Times image caption: “Part of a column of 40 armored vehicles speeding early this morning into Moscow,” AP photo

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Added: US supported absolute power of Russian “Strongman” Yeltsin in 1990s: UK Guardian report: In Oct. 1993 Yeltsin closed opposition newspapers and sent tanks to remove his opponents in Russian parliament. Scores were killed, hundreds wounded, Bill Clinton said, “President Yeltsin had no other alternative but to try to restore order.”

10/5/1993, “Yeltsin crushes revolt, UK Guardian, Jonathan Steele and David Hearst in Moscow

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“President Boris Yeltsin moved swiftly last night to stamp his absolute power on Russia by suspending a range of political movements and closing opposition newspapers after the surrender of his main parliamentary opponents in the wake of the assault on the Russian White House. Under a decree following the state of emergency that Mr Yeltsin imposed on Sunday, the National Salvation Front, the Russian Communist Party, the United Front of Workers and the Union of Officers were banned, while Pravda, the former organ of the Soviet Communist Party, and a number of other papers were told to cease publication. An overnight curfew was also imposed throughout Moscow….

With elections promised in December for a new bicameral parliament, the bans will severely limit the options for Russians who oppose Mr Yeltsin. They will also remove the risk that those unhappy with the government’s tough economic reforms will vote for communists on the model of Poland.

“Western leaders, warned in advance of the assault, promptly declared support, but urged a speedy return to constitutionality amid fears that the Russian leader could become a political hostage to the armed forces.

“It is clear that the opposition forces started the conflict, and President Yeltsin had no other alternative but to try to restore order,’ the US president,

Bill Clinton, said. 

“The US supported Yeltsin because he is Russia’s democratically-elected leader,” he said. “I have no reason to doubt the personal commitment that President Yeltsin made to let the Russian people decide their own future in elections.’ 

In Blackpool, the Prime Minister, John Major, said: “What is now necessary is that normal order is restored and that the Russians move forward to the elections they planned in December.”

In Brussels, the European Commission announced emergency medical aid of 300,000 ecus (around £235,000) for those wounded in the fighting.

China was the only major power not to back Mr. Yeltsin. “We are deeply concerned about the recent bloodshed in Moscow,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.

“As a friendly neighbour, we hope to see an end to the conflict and a proper solution to the current situation in the interest of the stability, unity and economic recovery.""

 

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Saturday, June 17, 2023

Neocon Trump bragged to top GOP donors, “Nobody has been tougher on Russia than me,” US should label its F-22 planes with Chinese flag and “bomb the s–t out of Russia,” and on his watch US military had been in “skirmishes” with Russian troops and won-Washington Post, 3/6/2022

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Trump said, “he knew he had to have won Georgia [in Nov. 2020] because he won Alabama and South Carolina by such large numbers.” (Biden won Georgia in Nov. 2020 by a narrow margin. Democrats also flipped both US Senate seats in Georgia in Nov. 2020 from Republican to Democrat. In Sept. 2021, Trump told Georgia rally he’d prefer Democrat Stacey Abrams for Georgia Governor over Republican Brian Kemp. A rally attendee yelled out, We don’t want her.” In Nov. 2022 Kemp defeated Democrat Abrams by a substantial margin).

3/6/2022, “Trump muses on war with Russia and praises Kim Jong Un," Washington Post, Josh Dawsey, New Orleans

“The former president spoke to GOP donors [on March 5, 2022] during an 84-minute speech in New Orleans.”

“Former president Donald Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the

United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag

and “bomb the s–t out of Russia.”

He also praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “seriously tough,” claimed he was harder on Vladimir Putin than any other president, reiterated his false claims that he won the 2020 election, urged his party to be “tougher” on supposed election fraud, disparaged a range of prominent party opponents and called global warming “a great hoax” that could actually bring a welcome development: more waterfront property.

“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it,

and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch,

he said

of labeling U.S. military planes with Chinese flags and bombing Russia,

which was met with laughter from the crowd of donors,

according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post.

His 84-minute address to about 250 of the Republican Party’s top donors at the elite Four Seasons focused heavily on foreign policy and his claims that the 2020 election was “rigged,” as he ticked through a smorgasbord of topics and perceived enemies, using vulgarities and jokes that often drew raucous laughter. Trump also took pictures with some of the party’s top donors and participated in a pricey roundtable for about 10 of them.

After coming under fierce criticism for praising Putin as “savvy” and “brilliant” for the Russian leader’s moves in Ukraine last month, he struck a tougher tone Saturday

claiming Putin never would have invaded the country if Trump was president of the United States.

But he spent far more time blaming President Biden than Putin, and often spoke in vague platitudes without specifying what he would have done differently.

“I knew Putin very well.

He would not have done it. He would have never done it,” Trump said, without mentioning that, as president, he held up military aid for Ukraine as he pushed the country to investigate Biden’s son Hunter.

He espoused praise for North Korea’s brutal leader, marveling at how Kim’s generals and aides “cowered” when the dictator spoke to them. “Total control,” Trump said of how Kim ran the country, describing generals snapping to attention and standing up on command.

“His people were sitting at attention,” he added.

“I looked at my people and said I want my people to act like that,” he said to laughter.

Trump also spent a large portion of his speech falsely claiming that he won Georgia, Wisconsin and other states in the 2020 election, offering unsubstantiated theories about how he won. After not touching on the election until minute 45 — a win for some of his advisers — he finished the speech with a long jeremiad about it. For example,

he said, he knew he had to have won Georgia

because he won Alabama and South Carolina by such large numbers,

and he accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of tilting the election against him.

Trump made an ominous call for the party to be more loyal in backing up his claims about fraud.

“The vote counter is often more important than the candidate,” he told the crowd, saying he had learned that from radio show host Mark Levin. “ … We have to get a lot tougher and smarter at the polls.”

If not, he said, the Republican Party would no longer exist.

“At a certain point, they won’t show up if we allow this to happen again,”

he said of Republicans.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, he added,

had vowed she would “work on it.”

He also viciously mocked Republicans who didn’t back him in his crusade to hold power after he lost the 2020 election. “Stupid, corrupt Mitch McConnell,” he said of the Senate minority leader, before labeling former vice president Mike Pence a “conveyor belt — like corn” for opening and counting the electoral college votes as the Constitution requires.

“Terrible,” he said of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.), who voted to impeach him.

Trump all but said he planned to run for the presidency again — and that he wasn’t going anywhere. “I wonder who that might be,” he jokingly said of the 2024 nominee, as the crowd broke out in “Trump!” chants.

“We’ve already won two presidential elections,” Trump falsely stated.

“And now I feel obligated that we have to really look strongly at doing it again.…We are looking at it very, very strongly. We have to do it. We have to do it.”

“We’re doing great as a party,” he said. “The Republican Party is now a fighting party. We are now a winning party. We are never going back to what it was before. It was heading in the wrong direction.”

Trump’s speech was a culmination of two days of events at the gilded riverfront resort here, where a dazzling chandelier dominates the lobby and sturgeon caviar goes for $200 an ounce and tiki cocktails go for $18.

Donors who have written checks for tens of thousands of dollars walked out Saturday night holding copies of the former president’s photo book, titled “Our Journey Together,”

purchased by the RNC.

The mood has been largely ebullient at the hotel, as donors and operatives predicted Republicans would win back congressional majorities.

Donors have also heard from Pence, senators and members of Congress, pollster Kellyanne Conway and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, according to people familiar with the events. Pence and Haley, both potential 2024 candidates, touched on some of the same themes as Trump — Ukraine and Russia, chiefly — but offered vastly shorter and different speeches.

Discussing future elections, Pence said Republicans needed to move past the 2020 election loss. Trump has continued to falsely claim that Pence had the authority to overturn the 2020 election during Congress’s counting of electoral college votes, which he did not. Such false claims helped fuel the “Hang Mike Pence!” chant that erupted among the pro-Trump mob during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

“My fellow Republicans, we can only win if we are united around an optimistic vision for the future based on our highest values,” he said. “We cannot win by fighting yesterday’s battles or by re-litigating the past.”

Pence advisers said he wanted to draw a contrast with Trump, who continues to look back on the 2020 election, as he did on Saturday evening.

Pence obliquely chastised Trump for his comments that Putin was “savvy” and “brilliant,” according to a copy of his remarks reviewed by The Post.

There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin,Pence said.

Trump cited the comments Saturday night:

“Nobody has ever been tougher on Russia than me,” he retorted,

adding that those who have accused him of being a “Putin apologist” disqualify themselves from being “serious leaders of our country.”

Haley did not mention Trump once in her speech, according to audio reviewed by The Post. She largely attacked Biden and described a country in decline that is battling over boys playing on girls’ sports teams, gender issues in the military and curriculum fights in classrooms.

“The reason Ukraine is in this situation, the reason we have world chaos like we are, is the United States has been completely and totally distracted,” Haley said. “ … We have to stop this national self-loathing that’s happening in our country.”

She implicitly criticized the Trump administration for not doing more to take on China when it came to the coronavirus pandemic and, in contrast with Trump’s comments in recent weeks, criticized Russia for its moves in Ukraine.

“When China gave covid to the world and millions of people died, what did we do? We didn’t even call one pitiful meeting at the United Nations,” she said. “We didn’t ask China to step up. … We’ve done nothing about it.”

Several people in the room said Trump’s speech stretched far too long and he sounded like he was rambling more in the last 30 minutes. In the middle of the speech, attendees said people in the crowd seemed to lose interest.

Trump came to the dinner as the leading figure in the GOP, but his influence has waned in recent months, according to polls and interviews with activists and donors. Though he has raised more money than any other Republican since leaving office — his political action committee has more than $120 million — he has seen some erosion in support.

That Trump came to New Orleans at all — he rarely leaves his properties — and that the GOP did not hold the event in Palm Beach, Fla., at his club as they did last year [2021] were signs to some that his influence has faded. Last year, his speech was widely panned, and some donors left early,

as he made it all about the election.

Trump spent much of the evening talking about the fighting in Ukraine and sought to project strength on his foreign policy record, regaling the crowd with a long story about how his administration took on the Islamic State militant group.

He bragged about pushing NATO —

which he called a “paper tiger”

to force its countries to pay more for joint defense, but did not mention that he threatened to pull out altogether. He attacked Biden for rising inflation and gas prices, using exaggerated numbers in some cases,

and said

countries were “emptying their prisons” in the United States until he came along.

He mocked Biden for continually saying the United States would not militarily attack Russia but offered ambivalence on exactly what he could do. “We’re not spreading democracy at the point of a gun,” he said. Trump said Putin had talked more about nuclear power recently because he did not respect Biden, but he did not offer proof. And

he said Biden should take a more belligerent tone.

At what point do we say we cannot take this massive crime against humanity?

We can’t let it happen. We can’t let it continue to happen,” he said.

He said the military, under his watch,

had gotten in “skirmishes” with Russian troops

and won,

but he did not say more.

And he ominously spoke of Putin being more willing to engage in nuclear war — even referencing World War III — because Biden is president. He said that around the world,

others would become more aggressive, too, without him.

“Watch China. You watch what’s going to happen there. Everything seems to be falling to pieces,” he said. “[Biden’s] complete and gross incompetence,

they threaten a much wider world.”

Biden has received some plaudits for his handling of the Ukraine situation among foreign policy experts.

Trump reiterated some of his frequently repeated falsehoods and petty grievances. “The global warming hoax, it just never ends,” he said. He mocked the concept of sea levels rising, disputing widely held science. “To which I say, great, we have more waterfront property,” he said.

“There was a big thing about global cooling — what will be next?” he said. Trump said he was more concerned about “nuclear warming” than global warming.

He bragged about his crowds, inflating numbers at recent rallies, and mocked Biden for observing social distancing during the 2020 campaign. “He’d have eight circles and he’d have to get the media to fill them,” he said, describing the distanced seats Biden’s team would put out at rallies, with circles around them.

Trump called George Conway, the husband of Kellyanne Conway and a fierce critic of the former president’s,

a “stupid son of a b—-”

and questioned why she married him, even as he extensively praised her. He mocked several of his former aides, including John Bolton, who he said only loved going to war. And he labeled Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who led the congressional impeachment probes against him, a “watermelon head … because his head is shaped like a watermelon.””

 

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Sunday, June 11, 2023

In great news for humanity, Russian scientists will introduce actual science at next CO2 conference, COP 28 in Dubai. IPCC is rule over citizens, not science, business of ‘greenhouse emissions’ created by Joyce Foundation, backed by Goldman Sachs alum-Thierry Meyssan

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6/7/23, Global warming and the confrontation between the West and the rest of the world,” Voltaire, by Thierry Meyssan

“The theory of the anthropogenic cause of global warming will soon be at the center of the confrontation between the West and Russia. While no one denies that some parts of the world are warming, there is currently no alternative explanation for this phenomenon. But renowned scientists will be presenting another at COP-28 in Dubai. They happen to be members of the Russian Academy of Sciences.”

“The theory that global warming is observable all over the planet and that it is caused by human activity has been popularized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); a United Nations commission.

I have no expertise in climate issues and I don’t presume to judge whether this theory is true or false, but I am an expert in international politics and I can assess the work of this UN commission.

Ten years ago, I wrote that, as its name suggests, the IPCC is not a learned academy at all, but an intergovernmental group [1]. Its conclusions are therefore

not the fruit of a scientific approach,

but of a political debate.

The IPCC was created on the initiative of the British Prime Minister, Margareth Thatcher,

to support her fight against the miners’ unions.

Unsurprisingly, it concluded

that coal is bad for the environment, while nuclear power is desirable.

This is not a scientific theorem, but a political statement.

Furthermore, I pointed out that the creation of greenhouse gas emission rights is not an intergovernmental initiative,

but an idea of the Joyce Foundation,

implemented by Climate Exchange Ltd. [2].

Each state drafts its own legislation on the subject. It receives a certain quantity of emission rights, which it allocates as it sees fit to companies. Companies that only partially use their rights

can resell them on a specialized stock exchange in Chicago.

The articles of association for this exchange were drafted by a then unknown Joyce Foundation lawyer, a certain Barack Obama (future President of the United States).

The call for investors to launch the exchange was organized by Al Gore (future vice-president of the United States), and David Blood (former director of Goldman Sachs bank). Whether you consider these people to be bona fide environmental activists or high-flying swindlers is a matter of perspective.

Over time, this political device has been

cloaked in a veneer of science and good intentions, making it difficult to question.

Yet there is an alternative scientific theory to explain global warming. It was put forward by Croatian geophysicist Milutin Milanković between the wars.

The Earth’s orbit varies according to three natural cycles: eccentricity, obliquity and the precession of the equinoxes. Each of these variations follows a cycle, between 20,000 and 100,000 years, which is perfectly calculable. Combined, these three variations influence the Earth’s insolation and hence its climate. This theory was confirmed in 1976 by the study of ice cores from the Vostok drilling project in Antarctica. But it doesn’t explain everything.

The Russian Academy of Sciences has just put forward a third theory, also based on observation of nature. According to it, “The main cause of local climatic catastrophes is the increasing emission of natural hydrogen due to the alternating gravitational forces of the moon and sun, which cause holes in the ozone layer. The resulting rise in temperature and the mixing of ozone and hydrogen are the main causes of forest and steppe fires [3]].

The Académie des Sciences not only questions the dogma of the IPCC, it also challenges the mechanism for reducing holes in the ozone layer. Namely, the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol “whose implementation has wiped out entire sub-industries of the chemical industry

without affecting the size of ozone holes,

which have only increased”.

The Russian Academy of Sciences’ theory is also based on the idea that global warming

is not a comparable phenomenon in different parts of the world.

Contrary to popular belief, the temperature of the Pacific Ocean is actually cooling [4].

The findings of the Russian Academy of Sciences will be presented at COP-28 in Dubai in late November/early December [2023].

A political battle is already underway to silence the scientists.

It concerns the appointment of the session chairman, who will be able to give the floor to the troublemakers or, on the contrary, silence them. Mohammed ben Zayed, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is in charge of choosing the chairman. He has appointed Sultan al-Jaber, his Minister of Industry.

US and EU parliamentarians immediately wrote to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, asking him to oppose the move.

Their argument, as ever, is irrelevant to their objective. They argue that Sultan al-Jaber is also Chairman of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). He would therefore be judge and jury. Instead, they recommend appointing a non-fossil fuel lobbyist.

He would also be judge and jury, but for the opposing camp.

If Russian scientists speak out at COP-28, the assembly is likely to split in two, not along scientific but political lines.

Anglo-Saxon supporters versus Russian supporters (the rest of the world).

There’s no doubt that the IPCC dogma will soon become the idée fixe of the West and

the laughing stock of the rest of the world.”

“Sources:

[1Le prétexte climatique 2/3 : « 1982-1996 : L’écologie de marché », par Thierry Meyssan, Оdnako (Russie) , Réseau Voltaire, 22 avril 2010.

[2The Climate Pretext 3/3 : “1997-2010: Financial Ecology”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Оdnako (Russia) , Voltaire Network, 7 December 2015.

[4Systematic Climate Model Biases in the Large-Scale Patterns of Recent Sea-Surface Temperature and Sea-Level Pressure Change, Robert C. J. Wills, Yue Dong, Cristian Proistosecu, Kyle C. Armour & David S. Battisti, Geophysical Research Letters, DOI : 10.1029/2022GL100011.”

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Added: 2014 peer reviewed study reverses assumption that climate is “global,” northern and southern hemispheres must be seen separately. ““This study highlights the need to understand regional climate rather than a global one-size-fits-all,…Professor Shulmeister said….The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Griefswald, Germany, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in July [2014].”

August 4, 2014, Climate change not so global,” University of Queensland

“Scientists are calling for a better understanding of regional climates, after research into New Zealand’s glaciers has revealed climate change in the Northern Hemisphere does not directly affect the climate in the Southern Hemisphere.

The University of Queensland study showed that future climate changes may

impact differently in the two hemispheres,

meaning a generalised global approach isn’t the solution to climate issues.

UQ School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management Head Professor Jamie Shulmeister said the study provided evidence for the late survival of

significant glaciers in the mountains of New Zealand at the end of the last ice age –

a time when other ice areas were retreating.

“This study reverses previous findings which suggested that New Zealand’s glaciers disappeared at the same time as ice in the Northern Hemisphere, he said.

“We showed that when the Northern Hemisphere started to warm at the end of the last ice age, New Zealand glaciers were unaffected.

“These glaciers began to retreat several thousand years later, when changes in the Southern Ocean led to increased carbon dioxide emissions and warming.

”This indicates that future climate change may impact differently in the two hemispheres and that

changes in the Southern Ocean

are likely to be critical for Australia and New Zealand.”

The study used exposure dating of moraines – mounds of rocks formed by glaciers – to reconstruct the rate of ice retreat in New Zealand’s Ashburton Valley after the last glacial maximum – the time when the ice sheets were at their largest.

The researchers found that the period from the last glacial maximum to the end of the ice age was longer in New Zealand than in the Northern Hemisphere.

They also found that the maximum glacier extent in New Zealand occurred several thousand years before the maximum in the Northern Hemisphere, demonstrating that

growth of the northern ice sheets did not cause expansion of New Zealand glaciers.

“New Zealand glaciers responded largely to local changes in the Southern Ocean, rather than changes in the Northern Hemisphere as was previously believed,” Professor Shulmeister said.

“This study highlights the need to understand regional climate rather than a global one-size-fits-all.”

The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Griefswald, Germany, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in July [2014].”

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“Media: Professor Jamie Shulmeister, 0401 001 254, james.shulmeister@uq.edu.au; Aimee Parker, Marketing and Communication Officer, 3346 1629, a.parker3@uq.edu.au”



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Friday, June 9, 2023

In 2023 US elites sold US taxpayers like a hanging side of beef to Ukraine warmonger Boris Johnson, another UK leech crossing the Atlantic Ocean to bleed US taxpayers. On 6/9/2023, Boris resigned his seat in UK parliament

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"Johnson is “very much seen as the [unelected] architect of the Western policy” on Ukraine, Polyakova said."...“On his trip to the US this week [May 2023, Boris] Johnson has also met George W Bush, another former president, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, and Mike Pompeo, who was Trump’s secretary of state.”...June 9, 2023, Boris Johnson resigns his seat in Parliament: Resignation statement in full as Boris Johnson steps down,” BBC

May 27, 2023, “Donald Trump and Boris Johnson discuss Ukraine at golf club dinner,” Times of London, Henry Zeffman, Hugh Tomlinson

Boris Johnson has had dinner with Donald Trump at one of the former president’s golf clubs.

“In the week it emerged that Johnson could face two more police investigations over claims of lockdown rule-breaking, he joined Trump at the Trump National golf club outside Washington on Thursday [May 25].

A spokesman for the former prime minister said that the discussions were focused on [more US taxpayer funding of] Ukraine. “Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP met President Donald J Trump to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the vital importance of Ukrainian victory,” the spokesman said.

Trump is seeking the Republican nomination to face Joe Biden again for the presidency next year. He has adopted a significantly more equivocal position on the Ukraine war than Johnson or Biden….

Trump heads for his dinner meeting with Johnson. The pair formed a bond during their time in office, despite earlier clashes
[Image] “Trump heads for his dinner meeting with Johnson. The pair formed a bond during their time in office, despite earlier clashes,” Rex Features”
…….
Trump was US president for just under half of Johnson’s three years in Downing Street. When Johnson became prime minister, Trump memorably heralded him as “Britain Trump”. Johnson was eager to forge a strong personal bond in the hopes of striking a US-UK trade deal.

They had clashed in 2015 when Johnson was London mayor. Then, Johnson said that Trump’s claim that immigration had produced no-go areas in London displayed “stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit for the office of the presidency”.

On his trip to the US this week Johnson has also met George W Bush, another former president, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, and Mike Pompeo, who was Trump’s secretary of state.”

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Added: Warmonger lobbyist group CEPA finances UK’s Boris Johnson trip to US to leech off defenseless US taxpayers. And why not?

May 23, 2023, Send for Agent BoJo! Boris Johnson dispatched to Texas to shore up Republican support for Ukraine,” Politico, Annabelle Dickson, Dallas

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Meets With U.S. Lawmakers On Capitol Hill Regarding Continued Support For Ukraine
[Image] “Boris Johnson tells Texan Republicans: “You are backing the right horse. Ukraine is going to win”| Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images”

“Britain might have fallen out of love with Boris Johnson. But Ukraine’s allies in the U.S. reckon the charismatic ex-prime minister is still the perfect messenger to [leech off defenseless US taxpayers] shore up support for the war in wavering Republican heartlands.

Pro-Ukraine think tankers on Monday brought Johnson to

a private lunch in Dallas, Texas, to meet two dozen

of the state’s leading conservative figures,

including politicians, donors

and captains of industry.

The message Johnson was there to deliver was simple: America must stay the course in Ukraine.

“I just urge you all to stick with it,” Johnson told those seated in the grand, wood-panelled dining room in downtown Dallas, where POLITICO was also in attendance. “It will pay off massively in the long run.”

The former U.K. prime minister flew to Texas as a growing number of conservative lawmakers, candidates and activists have started to question the size of the U.S. support package for Ukraine….

Political tensions over the war are expected to rise further as the 2024 U.S. election draws nearer….

Johnson told Texan Republicans on Monday: “You are backing the right horse. Ukraine is going to win. They are going to defeat Putin.”

The lunch was not the first time Johnson has lobbied U.S. lawmakers on Ukraine’s behalf. He visited Washington in January [2023], where he publicly urged the U.S. administration to give Ukraine fighter jets,

and privately met Republican lawmakers on the same trip.

Following that visit, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) — a bipartisan,

Ukraine-supporting think tank based in Washington — decided to enlist Johnson’s support for a broader mission.

The group wanted him to take his energetic, [alleged] pro-conservative

case for the war out of metropolitan D.C. and deep into Republican territory.

“We wanted to make that case outside of Washington — where we all live in a bubble — and to really take it to the heartland, to places like Texas, to get more support for Ukraine, and make the case to people who are skeptical about that support,” said Alina Polyakova,

CEPA’s chief executive.

“In many ways Dallas and Texas are the center of the Republican debate,” she added.

Texas will be a key battleground in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Trump held his first presidential rally in the Lone Star State in March, while DeSantis and former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley have also been courting votes in Texas.

Johnson is “very much seen as the [unelected] architect of the Western policy” on Ukraine, Polyakova said, adding that “because Trump had nice things to say about him when he was the president,”

it also [allegedly] gives Johnson “a lot of credibility as well

with the base of the Republican Party.”

As well as the private lunch with Republicans in Dallas on Monday, Johnson also met with former U.S. President George W. Bush, who lives in the city with his wife Laura. Johnson is due to meet Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Austin on Tuesday.

Unusually, the former U.K. prime minister, who raked in almost £5 million from speaking fees in the first six months after leaving office, was not paid for Monday’s lunchtime speaking engagement. However, he did arrange the Dallas trip as a stopover en route to the SCALE Global Summit in Las Vegas,

an investment conference where he will be paid an expected

six-figure sum for a scheduled speech.

Man on a mission

Johnson has kept Ukraine at the top of his public agenda since being forced to resign as PM last July over a string of personal scandals, including his attendance at COVID-19 lockdown-busting parties at his Downing Street home and office.

In power, Johnson had forged a strong personal bond with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,

and played a leading role in early Western efforts to [force US taxpayers to] arm Ukraine.

His allies even mooted the idea of him becoming a formal envoy to Ukraine following his abrupt Downing Street exit, though the idea never came to fruition.

That hasn’t stopped Johnson continuing his personal lobbying push, however. He visited the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in January 2023 — despite no longer being a frontline politician — and has continued to speak in support on multiple occasions.

At the Dallas lunch on Monday, Johnson insisted Western backing for Ukraine need not be indefinite, telling those present he had “every hope that the Ukrainians will be able to deliver a very substantial counterpunch this summer,” and that he believed there was “a prospect of a complete Russian military collapse.”

And addressing [alleged] concerns in Republican quarters that the U.S. should be focusing its attention on China rather than on a land war in Eastern Europe, Johnson said victory for Putin would be “terrible in its ramifications for south-east Asia, for the South China Sea, for all the areas of potential conflict between the great powers in the decades to come.”

By contrast, he added, [alleged] Western solidarity on Ukraine had already sent a clear message to China.

“From Beijing’s point of view, they’re looking at this and they’re thinking this has massively increased the strategic ambiguity and the risk surrounding a venture against Taiwan,” Johnson said.

One businessman present pressed Johnson on corruption in Ukraine, which he said he had heard was “really bad again.”

But the former prime minister insisted the $50 billion [US taxpayer funded] spending package agreed by President Biden would prove “value for money.” The U.S. is getting a “huge, huge boost for global security for a relatively small outlay,” he said….

Whether Johnson retains the populist credentials to win over the [alleged] most ardent Trump supporters Stateside remains to be seen, however.

In an interview with Nigel Farage on GB News last month, Trump said that while Johnson was a “wonderful guy” and “a friend of mine,” he had been disappointed by his time in office.

Johnson had gone “a bit on the liberal side,” Trump noted sadly. “Probably in a negative way.””

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Added: As usual, it turns out that the warmonger lobbyist group financing Boris’s trip to US is also “supported by” global chumps, US taxpayers via NED, NATO, and US State Dept.

CEPA “List of Supporters for the 2022 Fiscal Year”