EXCLUSIVE: PRIGOZHIN VISITS HIS OWN GRAVE

 

A man with all the relevant characteristics of Yevgeny Prigozhin has been seen visiting the grave of Yevgeny Prigozhin in St. Petersburg, raising fears and hopes that the former leader of Wagner PMC, believed to have been killed in a plane crash recently, is in fact alive and is somewhat mystified to see that people have in fact buried him. 

WHAT'S THE GABON COUP ALL ABOUT?

"New boss" same as the "old boss" but with a different boss?

More and more the coup in Gabon is looking like a Franco-American vs Chinese turf war. Firstly there's this from the China Daily: 

"President Xi Jinping and Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba agreed to elevate bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership on Wednesday as the two nations pledged to bolster cooperation on infrastructure, agriculture and the response to climate change.

In talks with Bongo at the Great Hall of the People, Xi also reiterated Beijing's unwavering support for African nations in following an independent path of development and its firm backing for Africa's efforts in advancing food security, industrialization and green development.

Before their talks, the president gave the Gabonese leader, who is on a four-day state visit to China, a grand welcoming ceremony with a 21-gun salute, a review of the guard of honor and the performances of military bands."

And then there's this about the coup leader from a French language source:

"Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, current president of the Gabonese transition, is a man who occupies a key position in the political history of modern Gabon. As Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Guard, he played a crucial role in announcing the cancellation of the presidential election and the dissolution of Gabonese institutions, minutes after the official results were released.

General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema is an influential figure in the Gabonese army. He is also known to be a multibillionaire, involved in embezzlement and having links to the drug circles of the South American-Ivorian cartels. [...]

...Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema is also involved in controversial cases. According to a 2020 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), he owns several properties in the United States worth more than a million dollars. For example, in 2018, he acquired a property in Silver Spring, Maryland, for $447,000 in cash."

Then, just recently, LeMonde was asking this rather pointed question:

CHINA TAKES "DECISIVE" ACTION ON FALLING BIRTHRATES - $137 TO GET MARRIED UNDER 26

It looks like the Chinese sleeping dragon has finally woken up to confront the main threat to the nation, namely its plunging fertility rate, thought to be in the region of around one kid per woman (or 50% depopulation every generation). 

But the response is not coming from the central government but from a local county that is now offering couples a bribe to get married

As reported by Reuters: 

HONG KONG, Aug 29 (Reuters) - A county in eastern China is offering couples a "reward" of 1,000 yuan ($137) if the bride is aged 25 or younger, the latest measure to incentivise young people to get married amid rising concern over a declining birth rate.

The notice, which was published on Changshan county's official Wechat account last week, said the reward was to promote "age-appropriate marriage and childbearing" for first marriages. It also included a series of childcare, fertility and education subsidies for couples who have children.

Concerned about China's first population drop in six decades and its rapid ageing population, authorities are urgently trying an array of measures to lift the birth rate including financial incentives and improved childcare facilities.

It is unlikely that one county offering a minor financial inducement will make much difference, as the reasons for China's plummeting fertility are deep rooted.

China's legal age limit for marriage is 22 for males and 20 for females, but the number of couples getting married has been falling. That has driven down birth rates due to official policies which make it harder for single women to have children.

Marriage rates hit a record low in 2022 at 6.8 million, the lowest since 1986, according to government data released in June. There were 800,000 fewer marriages last year than in 2021.

China's fertility rate, already one of the world's lowest, is estimated to have dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022, state media reported.

High childcare costs and having to stop their careers have put many women off having more children or any at all. Gender discrimination and traditional stereotypes of women caring for their children are still widespread throughout the country.

Low consumer confidence and growing concerns over the health of China’s economy are also key factors cited by young Chinese for not wanting to get married and have children.

More radical action will clearly be required. but almost anything the central government could do to improve the demographic situation is sure to have immediate negative economic and political blowback for China's leaders, whose power, while increasingly centralised under Xi Jinping, is more and more brittle. 

Over the coming decades, expect to see more pushes for "reclaiming Taiwan" and increasing "muh Chinese living space," while the Chinese race itself increasingly dies away. 

CHINA IS A PAPER TIGER

Since Xi Jinping tightened his grip on power in China some years ago, the Beijing government has focused more on propaganda and projecting an image of strength rather than on building up strength and creating authentic influence. China expats and critics Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye give their take on the increasingly hollow power of a system that is unable to sustain internal criticisms that impinge on its leadership cult.

TRUMP TWEETS "NEVER SURRENDER" AFTER MEEKLY SURRENDERING TO LAW ENFORCEMENT

Trump meek face

Ex-President Donald Trump is back on social media platform Twitter, and has tweeted defiantly, following his arrest on criminal charges for plotting to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

It is the first time he has tweeted since his Twitter account was unbanned sometime last year,

In the tweet, which already has over a 100 million views  and likes (mainly from bot accounts), Trump wrote "NEVER SURRRENDER" despite surrendering to Georgia's state police and allowing them to lead him around like a tame circus bear to get his mugshot taken and fingerprints done. 

Here is a screenshot of the Tweet, just in case "free speech" advocate Elon Musk gets cold feet later (or receives orders from his Chinese masters to take it down).

Supporters of the ex-President were slow to spot the obvious contradiction or irony of Trump tweeting such fierce and unconquerable words when he had, in fact, meekly and mildly surrendered.

Lots of Trump fans immediately posted "Dark Maga" memes and hinted at a coming apocalyptic civil war. Meanwhile Trump's lawyers posted bail for $200,000 and asked permission for their client to leave the police station. 

WHAT IS THE WEST?

Also available on YouTube, Odysee, and BitChute

by Duns Scotus

The West is a rather nebulous term that is booted around a lot and is sometimes used as a synonym for "America" or, more correctly, the "American Empire." It is only fitting that we should try to nail it down and give it a more concrete definition. Here is my understanding of the term. 

The West is the English-speaking world as a projection of global and hegemonic power. This essentially involves five phenomena:

(1) The concrete phenomenon: i.e. the actual English-speaking countries themselves. This is America, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. It also includes all the islands in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean directly controlled by these nations, as well as British-controlled Gibraltar and the UK sovereign base areas in Cyprus. This is the core. 

(2) The spiritual phenomenon: the consciousness and coordination of a common interest and purpose between these component parts, with deference to the respective weights of the component parts. Essentially this means that it is dominated by America, but not uniformly so. Indeed, originally it was dominated by the UK, but the balance of power swung decisively to America in WWII. 

(3) The attitudinal phenomenon: the projection of this power to other nations by alliance and dominance. In this respect, the most important has been the European members of NATO -- this has extended Western power deep into Europe since the 1940s -- and Japan, which has given it a dominant position on the Asian littoral. Add to this, various alliances in the Middle East, which have changed over time. Together this has given the West a dominant and hegemonic position over the World.

(4) The residual phenomenon: the power of the West is so overweening that large areas that are world that are not included in its empire, alliances, or zone of dominance, are effectively at its mercy and can only exist independently as long as the West allows them to. These include the entire New World south of the Rio Grande -- yes, Cuba and Venezuela too -- the entire continent of Africa, and the maritime dependent areas of Asia and the Middle East, like Egypt, India, and Indonesia.

(5) The antipathic phenomenon: the only limitations on Western dominance are the vast continental Eurasian nations, essentially China and Russia, with Iran to a smaller extent, along with occasional rebellions or disaffection among Western allies, including, France, Germany, and Turkey. It is wrong to see the French and Germans as integral parts of the West. Starting in the 1950s they have often tried various forms of largely passive aggressive behaviours to drag themselves out from under the heels of the West. The UK's relations with the EU and Brexit can even be viewed in these terms. 

What the West definitely is not is a body of democratic or liberal values. It is an Oceanic geopolitical system built up by the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries, and largely taken over by the USA in the 20th. It's connection to so-called democratic values is purely coincidental.

A further note, the West is often seen as intimately connected with Israel. This is a false perception. The Israeli connection is essentially a quirk of US domestic politics on the evangelical side. Israel, in no real sense, is part of the West, although it has been an unofficial participant in the West's alliance system during Soviet penetration of the Middle East in the 60s and 70s. More accurately, a close connection to Israel weakens the West by provoking unnecessary animosity among Middle Eastern countries, which are susceptible to infiltration and counter alliances from the Eurasian nations. 

ORC WARS

 

Gangster soap opera plot twist

by Colin Liddell

Back in the Obama years I guess some of us could have been partially forgiven for hoping that a sustained ideological challenge to the toxicity of the West could have been mounted from a place like Russia. Those days are long gone and clearly ended for all but the biggest idiots on the 24th February 2022, when Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. 

The latest orc-on-orc violence from the Russo-sphere, in which Putin apparently had a bomb placed on the plane of the Wagner Group's leadership, shows once again that Russia is nothing but a morally vacuous abyss, a hollowed-out gangster state, designed to keep the biggest criminals in power until they too fall foul of the power dynamic and end up charred to a crisp or tortured to death in some cellar. 

In an immediate sense, this brutal act (assuming it is indeed by Putin and not, say, French intelligence, the CIA, or MI6, etc.) strengthens Putin's hand. It shows him getting his revenge on his rebellious underlings, and makes those around him more afraid of him.

But, fear is a two-edged sword.

In the less immediate sense, it actually makes Putin weaker, as those around him won't be able to stop seeing themselves in Prigozhin's shoes, who, when all is said and done, genuinely wanted "Team Orc" to win this war. 

There are two ways in which this Kremlin Night of the Long Knives plays out for Russia, both extremely negative:

(1) Everyone in leadership positions will be even more terrified, so that no one will want to be the bearer of bad news or critical of the way things are being done. Basically, this is similar to what happened to Nazi Germany, especially after Hitler survived the July 1944 bomb plot, and the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev years. Most in management positions will just try to sit in place and hope for the best. Problems, failures, and weaknesses will go unchecked.

(2) Many in the leadership will also start working even harder on their exit/survival strategies. Inevitably this will involve all sorts of passive aggressive behaviour, heel-dragging, and even secretly wishing or working for the war to fail, so that they can get some distance from Putin by his failure, discrediting, and removal from power.

Needless to say, this process is unlikely to be smooth, and will, at the very least, result in Russia being defeated and humiliated in the war, and, at most, lead to the country disintegrating. 

In fact, when you think about how this dynamic is likely to play out and why, you realise why democracies, although obviously toxic in lots of ways, are actually much more robust and successful at war and geopolitics than over-centralised, morally vacuous totalitarian states. 

Meanwhile, what is Russia Today saying about the incident?

Basically Andrew-Anglin-level trolling -- just to remind you what an unserious, cynical, post-truth, ideologically vacuous state the Kremlin has now become. 

____________________

Follow @cbliddell

Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia). 

FAT "GAY" WHINGERS SOUTH OF RICHMOND

"Rich Men North of Richmond" singer Oliver Anthony

by Colin Liddell

Most of the crap that briefly bobs to the surface of the human sewer that is "the internet n' social media" is best ignored, so when a song by a flabby-looking kid with a fuzzy red beard about how "oppressed" Murcans were by "paedophiles" started going viral, I went for the mute button.

Now, as the meme cools into a cold puddle of dry sick, it is worth perhaps at least a cursory glance to see what we can learn from its errant popularity about the state of the American nation. 

The song, which is done in a cringe-worthy "earnest" country style, purports to be a passionate "democratic" cri de cœur about how set upon "poor wittle Murcans" are: 

"I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day

Overtime hours for bullshit pay

So I can sit out here and waste my life away

Drag back home and drown my troubles away"

Yeh, it sucks having to work for a living doesn't it? Have another Bud-Lite, bro.

But thanks to the American Empire, the petro-dollar, fiat currency, stimulus spending, and a massive trade imbalance, Murcans aren't really doing too badly. In fact, they have rather inflated wages ($77,463 on average) compared to the rest of the World, and all for the little they actually produce.  

"Livin' in the new world

With an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond

Lord knows they all just wanna have total control

Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do...

Yes, poor whittle Murcans! Their elites actually want to know what they think. Isn't that essence of a democracy? LOL

Then we get the lazy lie about the "poors" (average wage $77,463) being taxed till their eyes bleed by evil rich guys:

...And they don't think you know, but I know that you do

'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end

'Cause of rich men north of Richmond"

Actually, no. As usual, it's the rich, productive people who pay most of the tax:

For instance, the top slice includes the nation's roughly 900,000 households that earn $1 million or more a year. As a group, they are projected to pay $772 billion in federal income taxes for 2022, or 39% of all federal income taxes, according to a projection from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

By comparison, there are 29 million U.S. households with annual income between $50,000 to $75,000. That group is expected to provide the federal government with about $44 billion in taxes, or 2.2% of the total pie, the analysis found.

Also, much of that tax money is pumped into government spending that creates tens of millions of rather well-paid jobs, most of which are not strictly necessary, for ordinary Americans. 

What else has this crappy critique got?

I wish politicians would look out for miners

And not just minors on an island somewhere

Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat

And the obese milkin' welfare

Yes, Pizzagate being rehashed (paging Mr Nowicki!).

Actually, the research shows that most paedoing is done by poor losers, who, coincidentally seem to be the exact same people who have an inordinate desire to blame the rich, successful for it:

Child sexual abusers are often characterized as exhibiting poor social skills, having feelings of inadequacy or loneliness, having greater sexual problems or being passive in relationships (Cortoni & Marshall, 2001; Groth, 1979; Maniglio, 2012; Marshall, 1993; Whitaker et al., 2008). They differ from rapists with respect to thought processes and affect, and often describe their offending behaviors as uncontrollable, stable and internal; whereas rapists attribute their offenses to external, unstable and controllable causes (Garlick, Marshall & Thorton, 1996). 

Now onto the fudge rounds, whatever they are:

"Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds

Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds

Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground

'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down"

Nothing to say here, except look at a picture of this pudgy, slovenly, saggy-arsed motherfucker, who's still in his 20s:

No doubt he uses his guitar to hide his moobs and his neckbeard to conceal his double chin.

The rest of the song just repeats, so there you have it!

But what does this concoction of cringe tell us about overprivileged pampered Murcans? Just that all that privilege and pampering has made a great many of them into weak, little runts who have started to explain away their inability to work hard and resist donuts by mainlining on some sort of nebulous "victimization" narrative that can only exist in the unexamined lyrics of a crappy country song.

PS: I'm not saying America can't be critiqued, but this is definitely not the way to do it.

____________________

Follow @cbliddell

Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia). 

THE LATIN AMERICAN SCENARIO FOR RUSSIAN DISINTEGRATION

by Cemil Kerimoglu

Russia is the Latin America of North Eurasia. An area originally inhabited by Asian peoples wherein Europeans penetrated and intermixed with the local autochtonous populations, imposing on them their language and culture in the process.

The admixture took place to varying extents in different geographical regions. The same was true of Spanish America during colonization, where Spaniards and later European settlers intermixed with the indigenous Amerindian populations (direct descendants of those same North Asians who were colonized by Russians, by the way). Different geographical realities and different ethnic/racial makeups of various Spanish American territories later on gave rise to different Latin American nations that we have today.

The impetus for the nation-formation process in Latin America came from the Spanish defeat at the hands of Napoleon and the subsequent occupation of the Iberian Peninsula by France in the early 19th century, which led to a power vacuum in the imperial center. That subsequently led to Spanish colonies in the Americas to first establish their own local governments independent from the center, then claiming autonomy and finally full-fledged independence. This was followed by Wars of Liberation, in which former colonies prevailed against central government forces.

An analogous process began to take place in Russia after Russian defeat against Germany in the First War. Given enough time, the Germans would have reorganized Eastern Europe, the process they already started by establishing an independent Ukrainian Republic in 1918, for example.

Due to a power vacuum in the imperial centre, the rest of the Russian Empire also started disintegrating with various regions declaring their independent republics. The situation was very similar to Spanish America in the early 19th century.

But German defeat on the Western Front gave the Bolsheviks the breathing space to re-conquer those independent republics and re-establish the Russian Empire, albeit under a different name. That was meant to be an important turning point in history, but unlike in Latin America, in Russia history failed to turn. Moreover, instead of helping the secessionist regions against the imperial center, like they did during the Spanish American Wars of Independence, this time the Western powers, especially the U.S., helped the struggling Bolsheviks with material and financial aid during the early 1920s, thereby facilitating their grip on power.

However, history moves on despite twists and turns. One can thwart and delay the natural historical processes, but one cannot abolish them.

The much delayed process of Russian disintegration will eventually be completed. And it will most likely follow along Latin American lines. The main driving force behind Latin American independence were local-born elites of Spanish descent called "Creoles". Despite being of Spanish extraction, with time they came to view themselves distinctly from Iberian Spaniards. This feeling of distinctness by the local Creole elites, combined with the presence of the autochthonous Amerindian elements, is what gave rise to the various Latin American nations. It didn't happen in an instant. The whole process was preceded by decades of growing discontent with the imperial policy. French occupation of Iberia was just the trigger that let it all burst out.

The same is true about Russia. The "Russians" of Siberia, the Far East, the Ural region, and the North West are very different from each other to the extent that they might be considered as separate (proto)-nations. One should therefore not be deceived by the apparent uniformity of the Russian population. Also, just like in Spanish America of the 19th century, there's a growing discontent among the local populations in the regions with Moscow's rapacious policy, which by all means can be called "colonial".

At some point, sooner or later, this will inevitably all burst out like it did in Spanish America, and different nations will emerge on the Russian territory, most likely led by their Russian "Creole" population and autochthonous elites. Siberians, Uralians and Ingrians, will be the "Russian" equivalents of Argentineans, Mexicans and Colombians. United by one language and culture, but aware of each other's distinctness.

Also published at the From Baltic to Black Sea Substack 

CAN DE GAULLISM IN REVERSE SAVE AMERICA?

Also available on YouTube, Odysee, and BitChute

by Duns Scotus

Increasingly it seems that America is on the brink of civil war, or at least constitutional collapse. Right now, we are only a few months away from an election year in which the President is a frail and elderly old man with a dubious family background, faced by a challenger nearly as old, who seems mentally unhinged and operating under the stress of what looks like a weaponized legal persecution. Even better, if this guy wins, it looks like the first guy could become the subject of a weaponized legal persecution himself!

Apparently, no one else in US politics has the name recognition, personality, or talent to interpose him-or-herself in order to prevent this weird, geriatric "cage match" taking place. This may be because both candidates have become totems for their polarised tribes that have a stranglehold on their respective parties, and have been invested with all the partisanship of their respective bases.

Needless to say, this is creating an extremely volatile situation that won't be resolved by a mere election.

The American bipolar political system always had the seeds of such polarisation within it, but it also had a long history of working things out in a cross bench sort of way, with divisions being cosmetic and mainly used to energise the voters. But now the inherent divisions of that system have become increasingly toxic.

The main thing driving this appears to be the exaggerated power invested in the position of president. Without that, there is every chance that things would simmer down and we would switch back to a system where Red Party guys and Blue Party guys did a little rhetorical sparring but then sat down and did cosy deals with one another in the interests of their constituents, donors, and -- possibly! -- even country.

In European terms, the American system is highly reminiscent of the French Fifth Republic, set up under the aegis of Charles de Gaulle in 1958 to replace a system dominated by parliamentary squabbling and party divisions.

When this happened, France was in the throes of chaos and revolution caused by the pressures of unsuccessful colonial wars and the nation's reluctance to take its allotted place in the post-war international system designed by the Americans and the British.

The French government in those days had a lot on its plate and needed a strong, decisive hand on the rudder to be able to make quick and effective decisions. In the "Olympian" person of De Gaulle they found somebody who could successfully navigate the ship of state between the Scylla and Charybdis of French politics.

Since then, the French have seen no real need to change the system, because, unlike America, the French parliamentary system is multipolar instead of bipolar. This means that the president can have kingly presidential powers without being associated too much with one side of the political see-saw, quite unlike modern America.

If the switch to the first Republic was the answer to France's problems in 1958, isn't something like a "reversal" of this a suitable way to resolve the problems building up in the American political machine?

Shouldn't America seek salvation in breaking away from the old Republican vs. Democrat two-party system, while also weakening the overweening powers of the president, and instead place much of the executive role in the hands of relatively disposable Prime Ministers?

Such ideas may sound radical, but if this American political shitshow keeps going on and getting worse and worse, then something will have to be done. History, remember, doesn't need to just move in one direction. De Gaullism in reverse could well save America.

CLOUD OF IMPENDING DOOM HANGS OVER TUCKER AFTER BIOGRAPHY BOMBS

Trigger fatigue, the true abyss

A large black cloud of doom is hovering over Twitter livestreamer Tucker Carlson after a biography of the former Fox News host failed to sell at all well. 

The much hyped biography by hack writer Chadwick Moore, rang up extremely disappointing sales of only 3,227 copies in its first week of release, placing it at number 15 on the hardcover nonfiction list, according to Publisher’s Weekly. The book also failed to to make the New York Times bestseller list.

This poor showing suggests that Tucker's star is in freefall, despite claims that his livestreams on Twitter are getting "millions of views" and Elon Musk's stubborn belief that Twitter will somehow replace cable news as the main platform for news and opinion. 

The fact is that news and attempts to trigger and polarise people on the back of it for clicks and views, which was Carlson's speciality, has become increasingly tedious, repetitive, and boring.

Also, politics itself, thanks to the squandered optimism of Trump's rise and subsequent impotence, has become a grey soul-sucking shadow cloud that anyone with a life expectancy of more than 5 years instinctively avoids in favour of real life.

MORE EVIDENCE OF FED INFILTRATION OF DISSIDENT RIGHT LEADERSHIP

More evidence has emerged of infiltration of America's dissident political eco-system by Federal authorities. Even worse, it seems that the infiltration happened at the highest levels. The evidence emerged in a heavily-redacted 22-page statement by a nameless veteran FBI counterintelligence agent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The report was then leaked and posted in mid-July to a Substack newsletter. 

According to the report by the Senior Special Agent, which mainly focused om links between Rudy Giuliani and Kremlin-controlled funds, the agent also had an influential source in the dissident right who was  codenamed "Genius" and who supplied him with information on so-called "racist extremists" around the time of the January 6 Capitol Riot in 2021.

As reported by Business Insider:

The whistleblower recounts how one of his sources, code-named Genius, won the trust of racist extremists whom the bureau investigated for their role in the January 6 violence. Genius was able to do so because he had credibility on the far-right political fringe. Nevertheless, the whistleblower claims, the FBI ordered that the source be closed, supposedly for making the same kinds of "inappropriate" comments on social media that had earned him access to some of the leaders of the insurrection.

Already speculation is rife on who "Genius" could be, with some assuming it could only be Nick Fuentes. 

Fuentes definitely ticks all the boxes. Not only does he strike many as a morally hollow individual who prioritises his own personal interests, but he has been subjected to pressure from Federal authorities in the past, most notably over his rather suspicious funding. He also has the kind of insufferable arrogance that would lead him to being ironically codenamed "Genius" by his handlers. Also, the timing seems about right, with Fuentes's prominence in the wider dissident right dating from somewhat before the events mentioned in the report. Also, unlike many other DR participants in J6 Fuentes has yet to serve jail time. 

But it is not impossible that the source could be someone like Richard Spencer, Milo Yiannoupolus, or even Baked Alaska, whose ideological trajectories have been extremely odd to say the least. 

But, regardless of which telegenic sub-masculine figure "Genius" ultimately turns out to be, this is yet more evidence of extreme Deep State interference in dissident political movements. 

RUSSIAN COLLAPSE IMMINENT AFTER ROUBLE BREAKS 100-TO-A-DOLLAR BARRIER

On Friday, the Russian rouble passed below the all-important 100-to-a-dollar barrier. 

The real frontline in the Ukrainian War has not been on the ground, where, in recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have made cautious and hard-fought gains. The real battle line has instead been in the financial markets, where a relentless attempt to crush the Russian economy has been waged for over a year now. 

Quite simply the West has been attempting to bring its economic muscle to bear on the aggressor state, while Russia, bolstered by lukewarm support from China and a few other dubious nations, has been struggling to shore up its economy long enough to drive the war into a stalemate. 

The key indicator in all this is the value of the Russian rouble. Before the war started the US dollar could buy around 70 roubles. Soon after the invasion, this quickly soared to 134, before Russia intervened heavily in the markets to bring it down to even below pre-war levels. This was helped in large part by soaring gas and oil prices caused by the war. 

In recent months and weeks, however, the damage to the Russian economy has been slowly mounting while the strength of the Russian state to intervene effectively has been weakened, leading to the latest slide. 

In such scenarios, psychological barriers are all-important, so the rouble hitting 100-to-a-dollar after months of steady decline is liable to trigger a general collapse in confidence in the rouble and the Russian economy, which is still connected in a very brittle manner to global markets.

There is little Russia can do except issue long-term bonds with brutal yields that will saddle Russia with unpayable future debt. Already Russia's benchmark 10-year OFZ bond has soared to 11.72%. Next week when the markets open should be an interesting time. 

RICHARD HANANINANIA "OUTED" BY HUFF PO AS FORMER O.G. ALT-RIGHTER "RICHARD HOSTE"

Artist's impression of "Richard Hoste"

Richard Hanania is a right-wing pundit connecting more "radical" right-wing narratives and critiques with the right-wing mainstream in an intellectually valid and sustainable way. In other words, he is not some Nazi Larper or cuckservative waste-of-space. In fact, he does what the original Alt-Right did before it was co-opted and hijacked by Neo-Nazis and Russian shills and led to its destruction by idiots like Richard Spencer.

We therefore should not be too surprised that Hanania has an old Alt-Right past, including being one of the early writers on the old AlternativeRight.com site founded by Richard Spencer before his "Hitlerian" phase. His past has now been outed by the folks at Huff Po. Notice the typical sweaty Huff Po style:

Richard Hanania, a visiting scholar at the University of Texas, used the pen name “Richard Hoste” in the early 2010s to write articles where he identified himself as a “race realist.” He expressed support for eugenics and the forced sterilization of “low IQ” people, who he argued were most often Black. He opposed “miscegenation” and “race-mixing.” And once, while arguing that Black people cannot govern themselves, he cited the neo-Nazi author of “The Turner Diaries,” the infamous novel that celebrates a future race war.

Hysterical decontextualising and conflating of ideas, combined with errant associations - all designed to create an impression of "evil."

For the record, race does indeed have a massive impact on outcomes, people from all ends of the political spectrum have on occasion supported eugenics policies, and people in general, whether rightly or wrongly, have throughout history looked askance at miscegenation. Also, mentioning the Neo-Nazi author of "The Turner Diaries" does not mean one agrees with him. If that were the case, the author of the Huff Po piece would agree with everything Richard Hanania has ever thought, as well as William Pierce. 

It is not really clear how Hanania was outed. The article presents some narrative about clever journalism and clues on the internet, but it's just as likely that Hanania was thrown under the bus by someone who knew him personally, like his old Editor-in-Chief at AlternativeRight(dot)com.

More interestingly, the article mentions how well Hanania has been doing since starting a Substack account in 2020, and some of the people feeding him money. In 2020, he got a cushy "post" on a well-funded "think tank" the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI), getting $137,500 in one year and $160,000 the next year, with the money coming from the Conru Foundation, run by millionaire Andrew Conru, who created AdultFriendFinder.com, the matchmaking and hookup site, Koch-brothers-funded, Mercatus Center, and "dark money" sources.

There are also links to Elon Musk and other tech billionaires: 

Marc Andreessen — the powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist and billionaire, and a buddy of Elon Musk — has appeared on CSPI’s podcast, hosted by Hanania, three times. He talked to Hanania for two hours in 2021, and last year sat down with Hanania twice to discuss their “Nietzschean” interpretations of the TV shows “Breaking Bad” and “The Shield.” (In the episode description for the interview about “The Shield,” a police show, Hanania argued that it’s “white cops” maintaining order in America, while Black cops are corrupt and tied to “gangbangers.”)

Other names mentioned are David Sacks, Peter Thiel, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP presidential candidate with a net worth over $600 million from biotech.

Huff Po are very worried:

What’s clear, however, is that a coterie of powerful tech billionaires and millionaires — people with the kind of resources to fund something like CSPI — are invested in Hanania, maybe seeing him as a potential new éminence grise, an intellectual who can articulate and promote their specific blend of techno-utopian, anti-democratic politics.

Hanania, by the way, appears to be a Semitic name of Jewish or more probably Arabic origin. 

HOT SUMMER DUE TO UNDERSEA VOLCANO, NOT PLASTIC STRAWS

It seems that the most likely explanation for this summer's above average hot temperatures is not your use of "ecologically unsound" plastic straws, refusing to buy a Tesla, or not having a heat pump installed, but is simply the result of a massive eruption by an under-sea volcano near Tonga.

Unlike land-based volcanoes, which can cool the climate by ejecting dust particles into the atmosphere that then reflect sunlight away, undersea volcanoes work the opposite way by increasing the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. The vapour acts like a greenhouse gas, allowing sunlight in but trapping heat escaping into space, albeit temporarily.

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which took place in January 2022, and was little reported on by the media, was the largest natural explosion in more than 100 years and created an 85-meter-high tsunami which luckily did little damage due to the remoteness of the location.

The eruption also created a vast plume of superheated water that is estimated to have boosted the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere by around 10%, enough to have a major but temporary heating effect on the climate. 

You can read more about this at the Daily Sceptic.

HAS STURGEON BEEN PROTECTING TRUMP'S TURNBERRY "MONEY-LAUNDERING" OPERATION?

From Errshurr

Trump visits "the laundromat"

Ayrshire folk will have mixed feelings about this, but it's best to know the truth. While it's great that someone, out of the blue, decided to pump or dump "hundreds of millions of dollars" into a humble Ayrshire golf course, the possibility that this was done for dubious reasons has to be considered. In fact, the suspicion refuses to go away. When Donald Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and then reportedly spent a fortune developing it, questions were raised about where the giant wedge of cash to do this came from.

Strangest of all, however, is the evidence that Scottish First Minister -- and Ayrshire lass -- Nicola Sturgeon seems to have been playing defence for Trump, all the more surprising because Sturgeon is someone who claims to despise Donald Trump. 

Right, let's look at the nitty gritty. 

The reported price paid by Trump for Turnberry is usually reported as $60 million. Trump then claims to have spent $200 million renovating the course, resort, and its facilities. This is not impossible, but it seems way too high from what I saw when I last visited the resort. 

The BBC has reported on what the money had been spent on:

The spokesman said work had included "transforming" the Ailsa golf course, introducing a grand ballroom, refurbishing the 103-bedroom Turnberry hotel and adding a two-bedroom luxury suite and halfway house to the Turnberry Lighthouse.

Still doesn't sound like $200 million to me.  

But that aside, how is this massive "investment" paying out? It looks like the golf resort has never made a profit since Trump took over. 

Here is Forbes dishing some of the stats:

"Business has been even worse at Turnberry, which Trump bought in 2014 for $65 million. Despite investing an additional $75 million or so to fix up the property from 2014 to 2018, the place piled up losses of $58 million, according to an analysis of financial reports. The 2019 figures, first reported by the Scotsman, bring Turnberry’s total losses to $61 million since 2014."

In fact, it seems to operate regularly at a loss, and simply doesn't make sense as a normal business. So, what's really going on? What is the real business model here?

If Trump really did spend the sums claimed, the question arises where did he get the money from. It's not like it's just lying around as gold coins in his safe, like Scrooge McDuck.

No, Trump has to get it from somewhere or someone else as "loans." This raises the following questions: 

• Who lent him this money?
• Do they want it back?
• What do they get in return?

These are the kind of questions that Green Party leader Patrick Harvie wanted answered in 2021 when he called for an "unexplained wealth order" (UWO) to look into the financing of Turnberry.

As reported by the BBC:

The Scottish Green Party first called for an unexplained wealth order amid questions about how Mr Trump had managed to finance the purchases of the courses at Turnberry in 2014 and at Menie in Aberdeenshire, in 2006.

The UK government introduced the orders to help investigations into money laundering and other criminal financial activity.

Patrick Harvie, the Greens co-leader, has said Trump's unusual pattern of spending and the ongoing civil and criminal cases in the US provided Scottish authorities with the grounds to investigate the businessman.

Oddly the unexplained wealth order did not happen. In other words, there was a cover-up. 

So, how did this happen?

Firstly, then first Minister Nicola Sturgeon passed the buck, claiming that responsibility for UWO investigations lay with the  Crown Office's Civil Recovery Unit, an organisation independent from the government. Humza Yousaf, then Justice Secretary, disagreed, stating that the law did allow for the Scottish government to launch an unexplained wealth order investigation. Interesting difference of opinion there. No doubt Nicola had to get Humza in a locked room to see her point of view -- proverbial fly on the wall stuff. 

A case brought by AVAAZ, an international activist group, to the Court of Session, Scotland's most senior civil court, then looked at the question, with the government arguing that it didn't have the power to do UWOs. This was apparently decided by a single judge, Lord Sandison, who found in the government's favour. 

So, in short, Nicola Sturgeon's SNP government, which has always tried to gain additional powers, argued in this case against having the power to look into The Donald's finances. Smell a rat?

One other interesting detail. Who nominated Lord Sandison to sit on the Court of Session? Oh, yes, Nicola Sturgeon.

This has led many to speculate that Turnberry is, in reality, a money laundering operation. In a November 2021 article The Independent ran with a story: "Trump could still face money laundering investigation over Scottish golf course after judge rules courts should decide." But of course he didn't. It seems that in Scotland, Trump is too well protected.

Or is he?