Tag Archives: Banks

Apr 28 2022

Foreign Money To Stop Fossil Fuels Pouring into Canada


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada Re-Posted Apr 27, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Apr 28 2022

Russia Stops Gas Supplies to Poland and Bulgaria Amid Ongoing Ukraine Battle


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2022

At the same time as Russia has targeted railway lines as part of the effort to block U.S. arms shipments into Eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has now followed through on the previous warning to stop Russian gas supplies unless payments are made in non-sanctioned Rubles.

Poland is obviously the primary target for retaliation here, as the NATO alliance is using Poland as the gateway for arms deliveries into Ukraine.

According to multiple reports from the EU Russia has halted gas shipments into Poland and Bulgaria.  (Reuters) “Gazprom Russia’s gas export monopoly, suspended gas supplies “due to absence of payments in roubles”, as stipulated in a decree from Russian President Vladimir Putin that aims to soften the impact of sanctions.”

There are conflicting reports as to whether Germany is paying Russia, or whether they are trying to avoid running afoul of the NATO alliance by reducing Russian imports.

Ukraine President Zelenskyy is using the opportunity to reinforce his position that all European countries need to stop purchasing energy from Russia, or else they are not supporting Ukraine.   However, it’s not as simple as it seems because multiple EU countries are dependent on Russia for energy products and there are no immediate alternatives.  Russia is leveraging this dependency in an effort to break the western sanctions.

(NBC) – […]  After months of threats, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to two European Union nations Wednesday and warned others could be next.  The long-feared move against the continent’s energy supply marks a dramatic escalation of Moscow’s bid to weaken the collective resolve of Ukraine’s allies as they send growing numbers of weapons to help Kyiv fight.

[…] Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom announced Wednesday it had halted gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for failing to pay for gas in rubles, something Putin had demanded last month in response to tough sanctions imposed by the West on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. European buyers condemned Putin’s demand, saying it violated existing contracts with payments usually agreed on in dollars or euros, and called into question Russia’s reliability as a supplier.

[…] Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of petroleum and natural gas, and Europe is heavily reliant on imports from Russia for its energy supply. “In 2021, the European Union imported 155 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Russia, accounting for around 45% of EU gas imports and close to 40% of its total gas consumption,” according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency. 

Meanwhile, Bulgaria imported more than 70 percent of its natural gas from Russia in 2020, E.U. data showed. In the same year, Poland relied on Russia for around 45 percent of its natural gas.

[…] Notably, the decision to cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria came the day after the United States and its allies gathered in Germany to pledge more heavy weapons for Ukraine as it steels its defenses for what could be a decisive battle in the eastern Donbas region.  (read more)

Somehow, on top of the $14+ billion in direct aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden is likely to figure out a way to put the U.S. taxpayer on the hook for most of the EU energy problems in an effort to save face for the White House in a U.S. proxy war against Russia.  Both wings of the UniParty congress are likely to support that effort.

FUBAR

(Reuters) – […]  So far, it was unclear whether Poland or Bulgaria will comply with Moscow’s demands. Both countries rely heavily on Russian imports via pipeline.

Polish gas company PGNiG, whose gas deal with Russia expires at the end of this year, has repeatedly said it would not comply with the new scheme. It has also said it would not extend the contract.  Poland says it does not have to cut supplies to customers. The country can source gas via two links with Germany including a reverse flow on the Yamal pipeline, a link with Lithuania with an annual capacity of 2.5 bcm that will open on May 1 and via an interconnector with the Czech Republic for up to 1.5 bcm.

Bulgaria also had a contract with Gazprom due to expire at the end of the year. The country relies almost completely on Russian gas imports, and has taken steps to find alternative arrangements for supply, its energy ministry said in a statement. Bulgaria consumes about 3 billion cubic metres of gas per year and imports over 90 percent of it from Russia.  Previously, Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov had said a counterpart in Sofia could handle transactions in roubles, without giving details. (more)

Apr 28 2022

New York State Appellate Court Rules Against Democrat Gerrymandering Effort, 2022 Primary Likely Delayed


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2022

New York state democrats attempted to mitigate the bloodbath coming their way in the 2022 elections by drawing a redistricting map that eliminated three republican congressional seats.   Today a New York State appeals court ruled the maps were unconstitutional efforts to gerrymander the districts and now the primary races will likely be delayed.

The 78-page ruling is available here.  The state appeals court ruled 4-3 against the democrats. The June 28, 2022, primary will likely be moved to August because the state now needs to redraw the congressional districts.

(Via MSM) – […] The New York State Court of Appeals said the three maps violated the state’s Constitution by creating political bias. The maps were “procedurally unconstitutional, and the congressional map is also substantively unconstitutional as drawn with impermissible partisan purpose,” the court said.

[…] With no more appeals and time running out, the court ordered the adoption of a neutral map by an outside expert. The court also recommended the state’s June 28 primary be moved to August.

“We are confident that, in consultation with the Board of Elections, Supreme Court can swiftly develop a schedule to facilitate an August primary election, allowing time for the adoption of new constitutional maps,” the court said.  (read more)

Apr 28 2022

The Man Who Abuses Power Daily, Decries The Abuse of Power


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2022

Joe Biden, the same authoritarian who mandated that every American worker undergo a medical procedure in order to qualify as a person who might earn a living, sits atop his high-horse and pretends that he has never abused his power.

I know Joe Biden would like to believe we do not remember the past year plus of unilateral dictatorship he carried out while hiding behind the shield of “emergency authorization,” but the American people are fully aware of the brutal reality.  WATCH (24 secs):

.

Does he really think we have forgotten how he never once asked our representative government for authorization before triggering his unilateral fiats from CDC, FDA, TSA and OSHA?  The economic lockdowns, the loss of liberty, the collapse of freedom, the shutting down of any form of petition for grievance, the use and weaponization of the regulatory system, the manipulation of courts, the unilateral mask and vaccination mandates, the demands for compliance to some of the most ridiculous rules and regulations, and yes, even the lies and double standards his administration applied to the masses while they themselves ignored the rules they forced upon everyone else….  Does he really thing we have forgotten this?

Apr 28 2022

Representative Clay Higgins Questions DHS Secretary Mayorkas About Southern Border Crisis


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2022

The U.S-Mexico border is in a state of near collapse.  U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed with thousands of illegal aliens crossing the border daily.  According to estimates the number of illegal aliens who crossed the border since Biden took office is somewhere between two and five million people…. and the crisis is only getting worse.

Today Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins (CD-03) asked Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas to define border failure, if that is not what we have currently underway.  WATCH:

.

The painfully obvious answer is – it’s not a DHS failure because the massive influx of illegal aliens is the success of the plan.  The border crisis is a feature, not a flaw, of the Biden administration agenda.

Apr 28 2022

Dinesh D’Souza Discusses His Perspective on the 2020 Election After a Full Review of the Illegal Ballot Harvesting


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2022 

Dennis Prager asks Dinesh D’Souza if his opinion of the 2020 election changed as a result of his research, organizing and collaborating with True The Vote, and reviewing all of the 2020 ballot harvesting work.  The results of the effort are assembled in the soon-to-be-released documentary, 2000 mules.

D’Souza explains that following the review of the specific precincts in the specific key targeted states, it became obvious the election was manipulated by an organized political effort to use fraudulently obtained ballots to stuff remote ballot collection boxes in those key precincts.   By taking this precinct level ballot harvesting action in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona the 2020 election result was a manipulated to provide Joe Biden a win.

According to D’Souza, the documentary will show the specific number of ballots that were fraudulently harvested in each of the key precincts, which then documents the precise number of fraudulent votes that were obtained by the ballot mules. WATCH:

Apr 28 2022

Deep State Response, Dept of Homeland Security Will Establish Disinformation Board with Obvious Agenda


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2022

I think we are now seeing the outlines of how the Fourth Branch of Government are planning to keep control over information, specifically public discussion on Big Tech platforms, even as Elon Musk moves to open the valves of information from the social media platform Twitter.

Previously the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a new Dept of Homeland Security priority to combat disinformation {LINK} on technology platforms including social media.

Many eyebrows were raised as the announcement appeared to be an open admission that the U.S. government was going to control information by applying labels, that would align with allies in social media, who need a legal justification for censorship and content removal.

This CISA announcement was quickly followed by various government officials and agencies saying it was critical to combat Russian disinformation, as the events in Ukraine unfolded.  In essence, Ukraine was the justification for search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to begin targeting information and content that did not align with the official U.S. government narrative.

Previously those same methods were deployed by the U.S. government, specifically the CDC and FDA, toward COVID-19 and the vaccination program. All of this background aligns with the previous visibility of a public-private partnership between the bureaucracy of government, the U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. social media.  That partnership now forms the very cornerstone of the DHS/CISA effort to control what information exists in the public space.  It is highly important that people understand what is happening.

In July of 2021 the first admission of the official agenda behind the public-private partnership was made public {Reuters Article}.

What we are seeing now is an extension of the government control mechanisms, combined with a severe reaction by all stakeholders to the latest development in the Twitter takeover.

For two years the control mechanisms around information have been cemented by govt and Big Tech.  Even the deployment of the linguistics around disinformation, misinformation and malinformation is all part of that collective effort.  The collaboration between the government and Big Tech is not a matter for debate, it is all easily referenced by their own admissions.   The current issue is how they are deploying the information controls.

We have COVID-19, the vaccination effort and now Ukraine as examples of the collaboration to control information, to control what people are permitted to question and discuss on the internet.  Now things are getting much more detailed, and more alarming.

Shortly after Elon Musk made a bid to purchase a single information platform, Twitter, and then expressed his intent to open the speech valves, former Obama administration intelligence officials wrote a letter {SEE HERE} warning about efforts to break up the information control by Big Tech and Social Media.

That letter was shortly followed by a speech delivered by Obama himself where he specifically demanded that government take a larger role in the control of information {LINK}, essentially promoting an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ to control information in the public sphere.

The internet search engine operators have already agreed to align with the interests of the government.  That’s not debatable as in the examples of Google {LINK) and DuckDuckGo {LINK} to name just two.  Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have famously also expressed their intent to align with the control of information, based on the instructions and edicts of the same U.S. government agencies.   Again, this is not a conspiratorial claim, it is self admitted and we have all witnessed it.

Today, however, we are seeing the architecture of how they plan to organize the tools.

(POLITICO) – “DHS is standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia. Nina Jankowicz will head the board as executive director. She previously was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship and oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.” (link)

You can read more about Nina Jankowicz and her ideological alignment with the control mechanisms here and here.  The bigger picture issue is that DHS will now work around any independence of social media, vis-a-vis Twitter as a free speech platform, by defining the parameters of allowed conversation.   A bureaucratic board within DHS will now serve as the group who defines what can and cannot be discussed.

Here’s Ms. Jankowicz in September of 2020.    The head of the DHS governance board, Nina Jankowicz, claiming that color revolutions are an appropriate response to rigged elections, but they will never rise in the U.S.  WATCH:

It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see exactly where this is going.  Various U.S. government agencies will now define their interests.  The definitions will then be transmitted to the officers within big tech and social media, and any entity who dares to challenge that govt definition or govt narrative will be targeted for content removal.

Permitted speech will be defined by government agencies, and the mechanisms for controlling, targeting or removing speech that challenges that narrative will now lead to content removal.  The shift here, the part that must be emphasized, is the official justification in the terms and conditions of the social media platform operators will come from U.S. government agencies, not the platform itself.

Against this backdrop it is not a surprise why Elon Musk’s entry into the information space is now considered a risk.

…”The 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit vote that same year gave Silicon Valley executives, U.S. elected officials and the public a peek into what can go wrong when social media companies opt not to wade too deeply into what people say on their sites.”… (link)

Apr 27 2022

Trudeau Admits He Does Not Understand Basic Math


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada Re-Posted Apr 27, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

In an old video that has resurfaced from Justin Trudeau’s days as a West Point Great Academy teacher, the now prime minister admitted that he struggles with basic math. “I have a slight learning disability…that was never addressed,” the 29-year-old teacher stated. “I am dysnumeric,” Trudeau said after self-diagnosing why he cannot understand small math problems. Trudeau said that his learning disability did not prevent him from later teaching children mathematics. “Dysnumeric” is not a medical term, although there are learning disorders involving numbers.

Trudeau admitted he could not remember phone numbers. He said that he was still unsure of his multiplication tables.

Ironically, Trudeau says, “Questioning as a skill is not taught anymore.” Perhaps it is so that tyrants like Trudeau can invoke martial law over a peaceful protest and shriek at people to stay inside and trust the ever-changing “science.” Feasibly his revelation explains why he thought only a “fringe minority” of Canadians wanted to escape his COVID restrictions. He goes on to say that he also does not understand computers, but that his skill is teaching the youth how to think. “It’s not about teaching facts anymore,” he admitted years ago. It is about manipulating the people to trust what government claims is factual and implementing penalties for anyone who questions the status quo. It is no wonder that Schwab scooped Trudeau up to be one of his Young Leaders.

Apr 27 2022

Durham Staffer Accidentally Makes Private Emails Public, Fusion GPS Coordination Discussions with Media, and Much More


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 26, 2022

Another significant filing by John Durham’s special counsel team to the court was made last night.  {READ HERE} Within the filing the staff accidentally did not seal the attachments which are emails between Fusion GPS and many major media outlets.  Whoops.

♦ First, the background.  In a previous liable lawsuit by Alfa Bank against Fusion GPS, the Russian bank was able to get the internal emails between Fusion GPS and major media outlets as part of the lawsuit discovery phase.  Despite the lawsuit failing to advance, those prior emails now become evidence for John Durham to use in the case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Michael Sussmann, a Perkins Coie lawyer, is accused of lying to the FBI about who he was working for when Sussmann was trying to push the Trump-Russia collusion story to trigger an investigation.  Former FBI legal counsel James Baker has said Sussmann told the FBI he was operating independently as a concerned citizen.  However, Sussmann is defending himself by saying: (a) he never said he was not working for Clinton at the time he brought the FBI the material, a demonstrable falsehood; and (b) he was motivated by altruism, unrelated to efforts to help Clinton, another demonstrable falsehood.

As the case has proceeded all of the parties are now claiming legal and work product ‘privileges’ to stop Durham from using their communication and networked conspiracy against Michael Sussmann, and by extension them, in court.  Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann, Hillary for America (Clinton campaign), Robby Mook (Campaign Manager), along with Tech-Executive-1 Rodney Joffe, are all claiming some form of privilege.

Last night, in a responsive filing connected to all of the privilege claims, John Durham deconstructed the nature of their defense. Techno-Fog has a good outline {SEE HERE} of the court documents.  However, attached to the filing were exhibits supposed to be filed under seal that the Durham staff “accidentally” did not seal right away.

The exhibit consists of the emails between Fusion GPS and media as the opposition research team attempted to push the Trump-Russia collusion story into the media bloodstream -through their ideologically aligned allies- in 2016.

The emails show how extensive Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch pushed the Trump Russia story.  The emails show the coordinated effort of Fusion GPS with multiple journalists, producers and media outlets.  You can read the emails HERE.

I’m not going to publish the emails because the contacts, addresses, phone numbers etc. are not redacted; but you can clearly see the scale of who was involved.

The emails show journalists from Politico, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC all feeding from the same trough of manipulated information being fed from Fusion GPS.  The journalists, producers and Fusion GPS all working in close coordination to push the false Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.

The accidentally public emails highlight a soup-to-nuts ‘who’s-who‘ of political disinformation. {SEE HERE}

Additionally, the Durham filing itself {SEE HERE} gives us another granular look at how the prosecution is walking the tightrope of carefully balanced prosecution of leftist activists, lawfare people and political organizations outside government.

Within the filing the privilege claims are easily dispatched by prosecutor Andrew J. DeFilippis, Assistant Special Counsel to John Durham.  One key paragraph is a little funny in that the prosecution uses the defense position against them.  The prosecution states the “purported privilege holders who have intervened do so in a case in which the defendant has denied representing any client when he brought the Russian Bank-1 allegations to the FBI.”

The privilege controversy itself seemingly entraps Michael Sussmann.  How can Sussmann claim attorney-client privilege when his defense is to say he wasn’t working on behalf of any client when he brought the information to the FBI?   Whoopsie daisy.

All of that said, there’s another interesting aspect to this specific filing if you stand back away from the granular legal details and look at the arc of the prosecution within it.   It appears to me that Michael Sussmann is not the REAL target of this prosecution, Marc Elias is.

♦ It looks like John Durham is using the prosecution of Sussmann, and all the details within the case, to box in a very easy prosecution of Michael Sussmann’s boss, the infamous Democrat lawyer, Marc Elias.   Read the filing and you see how Perkins Coie and Marc Elias are clearly and purposefully outlined as having the major role in the activity of Sussmann.  All prosecutorial roads against Sussmann are leading to Elias.

That risk would certainly explain why Marc Elias left Perkins Coie immediately after the Alfa Bank lawsuit against Fusion GPS revealed the connective tissue, and then John Durham start focusing on Perkins Coie and Michael Sussmann.

Given the ideological and political nature of the DOJ under AG Merrick Garland and Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, it makes sense that John Durham would not and importantly, could not, go directly at Marc Elias.

Marc Elias is the biggest Lawfare fish in the world of Democrats.  He is the primary legal mind and legal entity around the entire Democrat apparatus from elections to electoral maps.  Elias is the leftists modern legal Moses.

If John Durham was viewed to be targeting Elias directly, his special counsel investigation would be shut down tomorrow, regardless of political backlash.  Marc Elias is to outside government as Barack Obama is to inside government.

The DOJ would immediately stop Durham if he was obviously targeting Elias.  Inside the firestorm that follows, the political media would rally the wagons around protecting Garland, Monaco and Biden ….and after a few days of republicans in the legislative branch gnashing their teeth on Hannity, Ingraham et al, the explosive decision would blow over.   DC would make or create some massive shiny thing to cover the controversy.

Bottom Line: Marc Elias is protected by both wings of the professionally political UniParty.

That said, if in the prosecution of Michael Sussmann, it became obvious that Marc Elias was guilty of organizing a criminal conspiracy to defraud the Unites States government on behalf of the Clinton campaign, well, that would be incidental, and that’s how Durham could get to Elias.

Marc Elias is likely to be the biggest catchable fish in the carefully navigated prosecution of those outside government.

Keep watching.

Apr 27 2022

U.S. Media Reacting to Elon Musk Purchasing Twitter


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 26, 2022 

Many of the media responses to Elon Musk purchasing the Twitter social media platform are epic.  However, a couple from yesterday stand out insofar as they are incredibly revealing about the current state of the leftists in media.

Every intellectually honest American admits the Big Tech social media platforms were supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 election.  Uncontested empirical examples include, but are not limited to: (1) Facebook and Instagram owner Mark Zuckerberg spent $500 million to support ballot harvesting efforts; (2) Twitter and Facebook banned and blocked any discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop story; and (3) Google executives openly admitted using their search engine ranking system to promote the Biden campaign over Trump.  Those are just three uncontested references -amid a sea of many more- that showcase a small part of their 2020 bias.

With that in mind, consider this from MSNBC. {Direct Rumble Link}  WATCH:

.

CNN’s media pundit Brian Stelter also had a rather humorous take showcasing the bubble of isolation that must encompass his own life.

In this soundbite {Direct Rumble Link}, Brian Stelter admits he has never been invited to a party where ordinary people gather to enjoy each other in the spirit of fellowship without any rules, regulations and boundaries.  WATCH:

.