"Ukraine Is Losing the War"

"Ukraine Is Losing the War"

by Jim Rickards

"The propaganda campaign on behalf of Ukraine is remarkable. You would think the U.S. itself was at war with Russia. All you hear about in the media is how many Russian soldiers are being killed and how much Russian equipment is being destroyed. Videos are everywhere depicting Russian tanks being destroyed. You never hear anything about Ukrainian military casualties or see any videos of Ukrainian tanks and other military equipment being destroyed. But rest assured, Ukraine has suffered heavy losses in its war with Russia. Meanwhile, Russia is making steady progress in eastern Ukraine. Russia has taken Lyman (a key logistics hub) and is encircling the Ukrainian army in the city of Severodonetsk.

The Mainstream Media Can’t Ignore the Facts Anymore: Even The Washington Post is admitting to Russian successes: "The city of Severodonetsk, near Lysychansk, is surrounded on three sides by Russian forces. Over the weekend, they destroyed one of three bridges into the city, and they are constantly shelling the other two. Ukrainian troops inside Severodonetsk are fighting to prevent the Russians from completely encircling the city…"

The Russians can advance north toward Lysychansk and completely surround Severodonetsk. That would also allow them to go after larger cities in the region. Meanwhile, Bloomberg is now admitting that “Russian troops control almost all of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.” One Ukrainian unit commander in this area concedes that the truth is being covered up for propaganda purposes: The casualties here are largely kept secret to protect morale among troops and the general public. “On Ukrainian TV we see that there are no losses. There’s no truth.”

I don’t report any of this because I’m pro-Russian. I’m not. I’m just interested in the truth, and the media haven’t been reporting the truth (what else is new?).

Sanctions: Apart from the kinetic war, there’s also the financial war against Russia. Sanctions included seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs, excluding Russian banks from the international payment message system called SWIFT and freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Russia. Sanctions also prohibited new investment in Russia, banned exports of semiconductors and high-tech equipment to Russia, banned Russian commercial aircraft from landing in the United States (except for emergency landings) and blocked exports of Russian oil to the U.S.

The EU, U.K., Canada, Japan and other allies introduced similar sanctions. Russia retaliated by prohibiting exports of strategic metals and other essential inputs to its adversaries and selectively cutting off its exports of natural gas to Poland and Finland. What has been the effect?

U.S. Is Losing the Financial War: That’s not going so well for the U.S. and its allies. Oligarch assets such as yachts and townhouses have been seized, but that’s exactly what Putin wants. Putin’s support comes from the military, intelligence services, the Orthodox Church and everyday Russians. Putin regards the oligarchs as potential threats, so he’s happy to see the U.S. destroy them financially.

The Russian ruble is actually stronger than it was before the war began. It was 80 to US$1 in late February and today is about 70 to US$1, a 13% gain. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is even cutting interest rates at the same time the Federal Reserve is raising U.S. interest rates. The CBR is even signaling they may cut rates further in the near future as a response to the strengthening ruble.

Most importantly, Russia’s trade surplus rose to $96 billion in the January-April 2022 period, which is more than triple the surplus for the same period in 2021. China, India and others are lining up to buy Russian energy exports in case the Europeans decide not to buy anymore. It’s not clear how Europe can make up the energy deficit that would result (they probably cannot in less than three years), but they’ll be paying higher prices in any case.

And despite all of the sanctions talk in the media, oil and natural gas are still flowing from Russia to Europe and Russia is still being paid in dollars or euros. These payments are directed to a special account at Russia’s Gazprombank and are not subject to seizure by the U.S. (although Russia is limited in terms of what they can ultimately do with the funds).

Putin Is the Biggest Winner: The officials in the U.S. and EU who are imposing these sanctions don’t seem to understand that basic commodities, such as oil and natural gas, trade on world markets. If Europe can replace the energy, they will have to pay the world price even as Putin receives the same world price from India or others. That’s how commodity markets work. The only difference is the price will be higher for everyone, including drivers and homeowners in the U.S., because of the boycotts and sanctions. The biggest winner is Putin because he’s a net seller, not a buyer.

The same dynamic will play out with strategic metals like aluminum, titanium, palladium, platinum; in precious metals like gold and silver; and in commodities markets for wheat, barley, and corn. The U.S./EU sanctions are causing disruption to global markets and imposing some costs on Russian citizens. Still the big winner in Russia itself.

It’s true that Russia has suffered a slight decline in GDP and mild inflation, but the U.S. has suffered far more. Prices for energy, food and housing in the U.S. are soaring in part because of the supply chain disruptions caused by the financial warfare started by the U.S.

Beware the Warmongers: It’s another case of the U.S. not being able to think even two moves ahead when it rushes into feel-good sanctions. The U.S. has said that the sanctions will not be lifted until the last Russian troops leave Ukraine. Well, the Russians are not leaving Ukraine. So, get ready for a lot more financial pain as the war drags on and the costs pile up.

In the meantime, we can only hope that the warmongers in the media and in both political parties don’t drag us into the ground war in Ukraine. Unfortunately, their rhetoric is increasingly leaning towards regime change in Russia, which will only back Putin into a corner. And a cornered autocrat, like a cornered animal, is extremely dangerous. You never know when or how he might lash out."

- dailyreckoning.com

Gregory Mannarino, "Must Watch! Mannarino Epic Rant! Calls Out All Fear Pushing YouTube 'Crash Channels'"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/27/22:

"Must Watch! Mannarino Epic Rant! 

Calls Out All Fear Pushing YouTube 'Crash Channels'"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Alan Parsons Project, "Ammonia Avenue"

Alan Parsons Project, "Ammonia Avenue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though.

Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars. Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210402.html

"For This Is What We do..."

"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?'"

- Barbara Kingsolver

“For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on.”

- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”

"The Worst Part..."

"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods."

 - J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"

○

"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."

- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo

○

"In the movie 'The Lion in Winter', when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:

Richard: "He's here! He'll get no satisfaction out of us! Don't let him see you beg! Take it like a man!"

Geoffrey: "You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!"

Richard:  "Well, when the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."

"Fellows You Had Your Day..."

“Times goin' change again an' things too, and that great British Empire goin' change too, 'cause time ain't got nothin' to do with these empires. God don't like ugly, an' whenever these big great empires starts to get ugly with the thing they does the Almighty puts His hands down once an' for all. He tell them without talkin', fellows, you had your day.”

― George Lamming, "In the Castle of My Skin"

“Calf-deep in the soothing water I indulge myself in the wishful vision. I am not unaware of what such daydreams signify, dreams of becoming an unthinking savage, of taking the cold road back to the capital, of groping my way out to the ruins in the desert, of returning to the confinement of my cell, of seeking out the barbarians and offering myself to them to use as they wish. Without exception they are dreams of ends: dreams not of how to live but of how to die. And everyone, I know, in that walled town sinking now into darkness (I hear the two thin trumpet calls that announce the closing of the gates) is similarly preoccupied. What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in the water, like birds in air, like children? It is the fault of Empire!

Empire has created the time of history. Empire has located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.

A mad vision yet a virulent one: I, wading in the ooze, am no less infected with it than the faithful Colonel Joll as he tracks the enemies of Empire through the boundless desert, sword unsheathed to cut down barbarian after barbarian until at last he finds and slays the one whose destiny it should be (or if not his then his son's or unborn grandson's) to climb the bronze gateway to the Summer Palace and topple the globe surmounted by the tiger rampant that symbolizes eternal domination, while his comrades below cheer and fire their muskets in the air.”

- J.M. Coetzee, "Waiting for the Barbarians"

The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

“The past is a bucket of ashes.”

1

"The woman named Tomorrow 

sits with a hairpin in her teeth 

and takes her time 

and does her hair the way she wants it 

and fastens at last the last braid and coil 

and puts the hairpin where it belongs 

and turns and drawls: Well, what of it? 

My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone. 

What of it? Let the dead be dead. 

2

The doors were cedar

and the panels strips of gold 

and the girls were golden girls 

and the panels read and the girls chanted: 

We are the greatest city, 

the greatest nation: 

nothing like us ever was. 

The doors are twisted on broken hinges. 

Sheets of rain swish through on the wind 

where the golden girls ran and the panels read: 

We are the greatest city, 

the greatest nation, 

nothing like us ever was. 

3

It has happened before. 

Strong men put up a city and got 

a nation together,

And paid singers to sing and women 

to warble: We are the greatest city, 

the greatest nation, 

nothing like us ever was. 

And while the singers sang

and the strong men listened 

and paid the singers well 

and felt good about it all, 

there were rats and lizards who listened... 

and the only listeners left now... 

are…the rats…and the lizards. 

And there are black crows 

crying, “Caw, caw,” 

bringing mud and sticks 

building a nest 

over the words carved 

on the doors where the panels were cedar 

and the strips on the panels were gold 

and the golden girls came singing: 

We are the greatest city, 

the greatest nation: 

nothing like us ever was. 

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,” 

And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways. 

And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards. 

4

The feet of the rats 

scribble on the door sills; 

the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints 

chatter the pedigrees of the rats 

and babble of the blood 

and gabble of the breed 

of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers 

of the rats. 

And the wind shifts 

and the dust on a door sill shifts 

and even the writing of the rat footprints 

tells us nothing, nothing at all 

about the greatest city, the greatest nation 

where the strong men listened 

and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."

- Carl Sandburg

○

“Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.”

- Jessica Cluess, "House of Dragons"

"Why We Are The Luckiest People, Ever"

"Why We Are The Luckiest People, Ever"

by John Wilder

"We are the luckiest people who have ever lived. “Why, John Wilder, you must be insane! Look at what’s going on,” you say. Well, the nice men at the sanitarium said that the whole “insane” thing was in the past, especially since the surgery. The doctor said the lobotomy was a no-brainer. But really I believe that we are lucky.

When you look at the state of society, we see an amazing breakdown. I chronicle that breakdown, week after week with this blog. We see our government falling apart. We see it brimming with fraud. We see our lives mocked and insulted.

We have the whole world against us. We are called horrible names because we have beliefs rooted in those timeless values. Even though they hate us, they’re more than happy to take the fruits of our labor – to tax and to take our productivity. Despite that, at every point our politicians again and again take the road that gives them power – a road that is rooted in evil and lies.

And the world? Many in the whole world have fallen for the lies, utterly. Timeless values are overturned in the span of less than a decade. In 2000, if young boys were dancing nearly nude in the streets, dressed as women, taking money from men, there would have been arrests. Now, the pictures are printed and celebrated.

This is not evil, this is the Evil of books for children, of such a caricature that they’re nearly comical. Charles Schumer? Nancy Pelosi? Joe Biden? Soros? Really? They’re so over the top Evil that central casting wouldn’t send them to a serious movie – they’d be given roles as the Wet Bandits from Home Alone.

Their tactics are no better. They brag about being tolerant while using the power of government and media to ruthlessly suppress any opposing voices. They use the levers of government selectively – citizens visiting the Capitol on January 6, 2021 is the worst thing that ever happened. Riots in the streets causing billions in damage, theft so brazen that stores pull out of major metropolitan areas? They celebrate that. Congress is used, again and again, to pass laws that push society away from values, destroy the family, and increase the power of the government over the governed. Oddly, anarchists and Antifa® applaud that, and celebrate things that even thirty years ago would be called tyranny.

They hate us. They are attempting to use the education system to make children hate the very culture and society that allowed the prosperity that they’re leeching off even now. They want to erase the history that built this nation and the heroes that tamed a frontier and invented entire industries.

Why do you think they want to destroy and desecrate our monuments? Why do they hate our flag? Why fill the media with propaganda? They want parents to fear children in a mirror of the Soviet era. They want to turn wives against husbands. They want to split the atom that makes up society, the family, and replace it with the state. Even religious institutions are rotting from within as the values of the Current Year replace the values that have proven themselves for over 2,000 years.

That, my friends, is why we’re lucky. Our backs to the wall, the entire world against us, we owe our enemy nothing. We stand by our beliefs. We stand by God. We stand by our families, our wives, and our children. We stand by the future that we are even now building. To win, we will need to show virtue, courage, and strength greater than any generation that has ever lived.

We will do so.

We are in a place to bring heroism back to our world. The future will remember us, not as the remnants of a world gone past, but as the founders of a world reborn. They will speak of us for a thousand years. They will write stories about us. They will write songs about us.

That is why we are lucky."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Pahoa, Hawaii, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Bonner, "8 Rules for a Poor Life"

"8 Rules for a Poor Life"

How to lower your standard of living AND

 look down your nose at everyone else!

by Bill Bonner

Ouzilly, France - "We rented a car in Paris yesterday and drove down to the old family property south of the Loire. The rental – a new ‘DS’ from Citroen – was quiet and comfortable. But it kept nagging us – in English. “Beep, beep, beep… put your hands on the steering wheel,” said the message on the screen, even though our hands – the only two we have – were already on the steering wheel. “Beep, beep, beep…You are following too close to the vehicle in front of you.” “Beep, beep, beep…A seat belt is not buckled.” “Beep, beep, beep…You need to take a rest.” “Beep, beep, beep…You are exceeding the speed limit.”

“Damned electronics,” we said to ourselves. We looked for a way to turn them off… but we couldn’t decipher the electronic instructions. It was hard enough to figure out how to turn the car on. The ‘start’ button is hidden – in plain view – in the middle of the dashboard, where the emergency flasher button should be, not where you expect to find it.

U-blame: The deciders in France live in chic neighborhoods in Paris. They don’t drive very much. And they are happy to make life more difficult for ‘the people’ who do. ‘Drive more slowly,’ they command; “it will reduce carbon emissions.’ And save the planet! So, the speed limit on rural roads has been reduced to the point where you go along as if you were driving to your own funeral. Then, you speed up to pass the slowpoke law-abider in front of you, and your car talks to you as if you were a criminal. But remember, it’s for a good cause.

Here in Poitou, our farmer friends reported last night: “It’s terrible. Prices for fertilizer have gone through the roof. And we can’t find replacement parts for our machinery. ‘Ukraine… Ukraine…. Ukraine…’ Whatever the problem, it’s blamed on the Ukraine.”

Back in the US…“The days of abundant resources and farm inputs are over,” said our favorite tractor company’s CEO at John Deere’s “Investor Day” yesterday. Deere chief Sam Allen says the company is rolling out electronic gadgets that will help farmers save money. His pitch sounded like what you get on your boots when mucking out a horse’s stall. What farmers need is lower prices for fertilizer and farm equipment, not more complicated technology.

And high input prices are not just a problem for farmers themselves. Higher cost inputs inevitably reduce outputs… which will mean less food and higher food prices. Again, the deciders won’t suffer… but it is a life-threatening trend for the world’s poorest people.

A Wealth of Poverty: But that’s the whole problem with the “Poverty is the new Prosperity” hustle. The elite can afford a little poverty. Other people can’t. ‘Demand destruction’ is the term economists use. It describes the self-correcting phenomenon: how high prices cure high prices…and why inflation will take care of itself, if it is left alone. As prices rise, people can’t afford to buy so much. Because they are poorer. So, prices fall simply because there is less demand for goods and services. Less is made. Less is consumed. Prices fall. And less energy is used.

Two problems solved. And people adjust as necessary. They get by and make do. When they can’t afford steak, they switch to hamburgers. But now…“Even chicken is getting too expensive?” asks a Bloomberg headline. And the geniuses at the Davos Summit… where the elite of the elite… the crème de la crème… dine on caviar and chateaubriand, after telling the masses to eat less meat… have a solution for that too. Just go further down the food chain.

Here’s the latest propaganda from the World Economic Forum (sponsors of the Davos Summit): "Good Grub: why we might be eating insects soon. Per kilo of live weight, bugs emit less harmful gas than more mainstream farm animals. A cow, for example, produces 2.8 kg of greenhouse gas per kilo of live body weight. Insects, on the other hand, produce just 2 grams. They also consume fewer resources than traditional livestock. For each kilo it weighs, a cow needs 10 kg of feed. Bugs on the other hand need just 1.7 kg.

Water, which is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in some parts of the world – and which is used liberally in intensive farming – offers another interesting comparison. To produce a single gram of insect protein, you’d need 23 litres of water. That might sound like a lot. But to get that same gram of protein from cattle, you’d need 112 litres of water."

It sounds disgusting…but it’s for a good cause! And here at Bonner Private Research, we aim to do our part. Yes, we’re going to help you get in sync with the ‘Poverty is the new Prosperity’ claptrap.

Here are our ‘8 Rules for a Poor Life’:

First, spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need. Use your credit cards. Buy lifetime memberships in golf clubs and health spas – and die soon.

Second, give generously to the political party of your choice. It’s money down the drain, for sure, but it might keep those other SOBs out of power.

Third, ask your boss to cut your salary in half and remove the AC from your office. Sweat stains will soon be a fashion statement.

Fourth, buy cryptos… meme stocks… NFTs… and techs. Tell yourself that you are wisely ‘buying the dip.’ Then, wait for them to go down more. And put your dollar savings in a safe place. Keep them there, and guard them carefully, until they are worthless.

Fifth, learn how to make ‘grasshoppers a la mode’… and ‘maggot linguini.’

Sixth, on your tax return, check the box that asks “Would you like to contribute extra money so federal employees can live better than you do?” Of course you would.

Seventh, refuse all government handouts – whether for unemployment, Social Security or welfare. You’ve made yourself poor; you want to enjoy it fully.

Eighth, sell your car. Henceforth, travel only by bicycle.

Ninth (a bonus!): scrounge around. Find a discarded tent. Set it up under an LA freeway. Panhandle… but with a superior sniff. You need some money to survive… but now you have a social status higher than all of those who give you loose change.

After all, you’re saving the planet."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"High Gas Prices Will Destroy the Global Economy This Summer - End of Days"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 5/27/22:

"High Gas Prices Will Destroy the Global 

Economy This Summer - End of Days"

"High gas prices will completely cause economic destruction around the world. It will create shortages to businesses, to restaurants and every aspect of our lives. Families will not be able to take vacations this year because they will not be able to go anywhere."

Jim Kunstler, "Childhood’s End"

"Childhood’s End"

by Jim Kunstler

“When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. 

When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.” 

– George Carlin

"The phoniest trope in American life goes like this: We must find the cause of X so that it never happens again. Of course, it will happen again. We only pretend that the cause is a mystery. Let’s count the ways that school massacres happen.

American schools are fantastically depressing places. They are designed to look like medium security prisons and insecticide factories. They send the message: Enter here and be psychologically brutalized. They are too big, overwhelmingly alienating, ugly, devoid of visible symbolism signaling the value of being human. The interiors of the schools are designed for the convenience of janitors, hard surfaces of tile and linoleum that can be hosed down easily like the quarters of zoo animals. Children act accordingly.

The “facilities,” as we call them, are deployed in the illegible landscape of a demolition derby, separated from all the other activities of daily life, which themselves have reached a culminating state of meaninglessness: big box shopping, national chain franchise food installations, strip malls of empty storefronts, parking lot wastelands, nothing that will excite a child’s imagination with emotions other than bewilderment, anxiety, and aversion.

The “teaching” that supposedly goes on in schools is a broken remnant of preparation for an economy that no longer exists. We’re no longer a society of people who do things, but rather a society of people to whom things are done, many of them harmful, humiliating, and arbitrary. America’s demoralized teaching corps is so unhinged by their own anomie that they resort to imposing sadistic fantasies on the children in their charge.

Thus, all the inappropriate curricula around adult preoccupations with sex, such as the Drag Queen Story Hour, for which mentally ill men are invited to act-out impersonations of women-as-monsters for young people who can’t possibly be expected to make sense of the spectacle. (I suspect that even six-year-olds, hard-wired to function as successful animals in this world, understand it as some kind of affront to reality.) Otherwise, American teachers are out of ideas, and are themselves damaged by the same forces in culture that they are now asked to direct.

America has become a malfunctioning pageant without feasible roles that children can realistically project themselves into. What ten-year-old longs to become the Burger King fry-o-later boss in a brown apron and an asinine cardboard crown? Rather, they are prompted to aspire to become sports star millionaires, of which there are perhaps fewer than 5,000 positions in a land of 340-million. By age twelve, they probably comprehend the unlikelihood of that outcome, or of becoming the next Kardashian… or Spiderman. (Superheroes are supplied by the entertainment cartels to occupy the imaginative realm of children because American culture is bereft of reality-based roles worth aspiring to.)

In this tumult of cultural impoverishment, psychotic grandiosity creeps in. Be big if you can’t be anything else. Hence, one achievable role for young persons in American life is mass murderer. It is a way of becoming important, of having an effect on other people and society in general. Your name may be forgotten, but the act itself will endure in the collective memory of a people. It will be some kind of a mark in history, even better remembered, perhaps, than whoever played third-base for the Atlanta Braves in 1994… or the woman who once capered down the red carpet at the Oscars in a dress fashioned on a slaughtered swan.

The mayhem unleashed in a school shooting is just the rectified essence of the manifold derangements in our national life. Everything is out-of-whack, including our perception of what’s going on and what it means. There is almost nothing left of childhood in this land, in the way of young, unformed creatures assisted by adults who love them into a future worth being part of. We have forgotten how to be grateful for having come into this world at all, leaving us unworthy of being here. The quality of virtue, meaning that some things and some doings are recognizably better than others was deceitfully replaced by the equity of nothing being allowed to be better than anything else. Truth and beauty have gone outlaw. Bad faith and wickedness rule, led by the Party of Chaos. So, really, what do you expect? And what do you deserve?"

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "What You Are Seeing Is Real - More Lies, More Propaganda"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/27/22:

"What You Are Seeing Is Real - More Lies, More Propaganda"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"In Stunning Shift, WaPo Admits Catastrophic-Conditions, Collapsing-Morale Of Ukraine Front-Line Forces"

"In Stunning Shift, WaPo Admits Catastrophic-Conditions,

 Collapsing-Morale Of Ukraine Front-Line Forces"

by Tyler Durden

5/27/22: "With Russia's war in Ukraine now in its fourth month, mainstream media consumers have been treated to seemingly endless headlines and analysis of Russia's extensive military losses. At the same time Ukrainian forces have tended to be lionized and their battlefield prowess romanticized, with essentially zero public information so far being given which details up-to-date Ukrainian force casualties, set-backs, and equipment losses.

But for the first time The Washington Post is out with a surprisingly dire and negative assessment of how US-backed and equipped Ukrainian forces are actually fairing. Gone is the rosy idealizing lens through which each and every encounter with the Russians is typically portrayed. WaPo correspondent and author of the new report Sudarsan Raghavan underscores of the true situation that "Ukrainian leaders project an image of military invulnerability against Russia. But commanders offer a more realistic portrait of the war, where outgunned volunteers describe being abandoned by their military brass and facing certain death at the front."

As many careful and less idealistic observers suspected the whole time, a steady stream of both wartime propaganda and one-sided social media feeds where it seems the only tanks being blown up are Russian ones has served to present a very skewed portrayal of the battlefield to the Western public. While it's perhaps easier to get sucked into this pro-Ukraine bias based on the innumerable so-called open source intelligence self-anointed 'experts' on Twitter, this is less so if one wades into Telegram, where a flood of uncensored videos from both sides gives a truer picture, as the fresh report seems to also suggest.

The Washington Post report belatedly admits the avalanche of propaganda based in a pro-Kiev, pro-West narrative from the outset: "Videos of assaults on Russian tanks or positions are posted daily on social media. Artists are creating patriotic posters, billboards and T-shirts. The postal service even released stamps commemorating the sinking of a Russian warship in the Black Sea."

The report then pivots to the reality of an undertrained, poorly commanded and equipped, rag-tag force of mostly volunteers in the East who find themselves increasingly surrounded by the numerically superior Russian military which has penetrated almost the entire Donbas region. "Ukraine, like Russia, has provided scant information about deaths, injuries or losses of military equipment. But after three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions," the report reads as it follows one particular battalion.

The report's sources speak out despite threat of being court-martialed amid a heavily controlled information flow: “War breaks people down,” said Serhiy Haidai, head of the regional war administration in Luhansk province, acknowledging many volunteers were not properly trained because Ukrainian authorities did not expect Russia to invade. But he maintained that all soldiers are taken care of: “They have enough medical supplies and food. The only thing is there are people that aren’t ready to fight.”

"First major US media I've seen to report catastrophic condition of Ukrainian forces, collapsing Ukrainian morale on the front. Seems obvious we should know the truth about a war our government is so deeply invested in." https://t.co/sYYwdm1p62

- Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) May 26, 2022

The report references a video widely circulating online this week wherein a group the size of a platoon declares they simply can't fight for lack of weaponry, ammunition, food and proper command support:

Full screen recommended.

“We are being sent to certain death,” said a volunteer, reading from a prepared script, adding that a similar video was filmed by members of the 115th Brigade 1st Battalion. “We are not alone like this, we are many.” Ukraine’s military rebutted the volunteers’ claims in their own video posted online, saying the “deserters” had everything they needed to fight: “They thought they came for a vacation,” one service member said. “That’s why they left their positions.” In the wake of the video, the Ukrainian troops featured are being accused of 'desertion'.

Additional videos have surfaced that are similar: units complain even of being left to fight in already impossible conditions with WWI and WWII-era rifles, which can do little up against Russia's far superior firepower.

The stunning WaPo report further documents volunteer groups of men who were previously oil well technicians, salesmen, or other ordinary jobs like farmers being sent to front line positions in the south and east - even though they thought they were first bound to simple security posts in much less intense environs like Lviv. “We shot 30 bullets and then they said, ‘You can’t get more; too expensive,’” one volunteer described. And more: “When we were coming here, we were told that we were going to be in the third line on defense,” Lapko said. “Instead, we came to the zero line, the front line. We didn’t know where we were going.”

The situation has gotten more dire as even water is in short supply amid the most intense Russian push to surround Ukrainian positions in the Donbas to date: "And in recent weeks, he said, the situation has gotten much worse. When their supply chains were cut off for two days by the bombardment, the men were forced to make do with a potato a day. They spend most days and nights in trenches dug into the forest on the edges of Toshkivka or inside the basements of abandoned houses. “They have no water, nothing there,” Lapko said. “Only water that I bring them every other day.”

Meanwhile the very noticeable shifting rhetoric issued from prominent officials and pundits of late has strongly suggested not all is well for Ukraine's military...

Notice the rhetoric shift: "Now both the NY Times Editorial Board and Henry Kissinger at the WEF are both calling for a negotiated peace for Ukraine even it it means ceding territory to Russia."

- Davos Detainee Poso (@JackPosobiec) May 24, 2022

The WaPo further includes the following devastating testimony and assessment: “Many got shell shock. I don’t know how to count them,” Lapko said. The casualties here are largely kept secret to protect morale among troops and the general public. “On Ukrainian TV we see that there are no losses,” Lapko said. “There’s no truth.”

Many of the casualties suffered by the above referenced volunteer unit were due to lack of logistics available to transport the wounded to hospitals behind the front lines. The report emphasizes that the entirety of the catastrophic conditions of frontline forces has led to officers and enlisted increasingly refusing to follow orders from higher command.

With this fresh and unexpected Washington Post report, the mainstream seems to now belatedly be admitting what only weeks ago could get a person banned from Twitter..."Western mainstream media has, for three months now, fed its audience a never-ending clown car parade of utterly clueless "expert military analysts" who have spun fairy tales of super-hero Ukrainian "freedom fighters" and comically inept Russian conscripts."

- Will Schryver (@imetatronink) May 23, 2022

"Lapko and his men have grown increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with their superiors. His request for the awards has not been approved," the report finds. "His battalion commander demanded that he send 20 of his soldiers to another front line, which meant that he couldn’t rotate his men out from Toshkivka. He refused the order."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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Related:

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 5/27/22:

"Russia Pounds Ukrainian Targets With 2S7M Malka; 

World’s Most Powerful Gun In Action"

"Russia's defense ministry has now released an undated video of world's most powerful guns pounding Ukrainian targets. The video shows modernized 2S7M Malka 203mm in action. The video does not mention the location of the firing. The 2S7 howitzer combines a 203 mm 2A44 gun with a tracked chassis featuring all-welded steel armor. The design came from the Kirov Factory in the 1960s and it entered service with the Soviet army in 1976. Russia has used this gun twice before during the war in Ukraine. "

"The War Can Only End With More War"

"The War Can Only End With More War"

by The Good Citizen

"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting

 each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” 

- Edward Abbey

"The youngbloods cry out with screams of mercy while prone in the sunflower fields of Lugansk. “The Cauldron is forming and soon we’ll be surrounded! When does it end!?” The big blue sky above ignores them. A nearby Azov officer hears them ask to surrender. Two by two the screamers get taken to the shallow side of a slope and shot in the back of the head. Final thoughts while gazing out to the horizon to take in their last breath: my death is happening because it was entirely preventable.

The entirely preventable war can only end with more war. The entirely preventable deaths can only end with more death. NATO’s orders. It was always going to end the way we know it will end. With more war.

The only thing they’re trying to prevent now is any narrative that undermines their aims to prevent it from ending. They say World War One was fought for reasons nobody really knows. The death and devastation were so unfathomable, so inconceivable, it was to be the war to end all wars. As long as people believe only war can end wars, then the war will only end with more war.

This war is being fought for reasons nobody with a functioning brain really believes. Democracy? Freedom? Insert all the laughing, crying, rolling on the muddy death fields of Ukraine emojis in the digital universe, plus all the facepalms, and pregnant men facepalms.

Forget the Nazis, the Oligarchs, the cocaine comic, the NATO clowns, the American empire war complex, the district of corruption, the demented diapered one, the EU tyrants begging for economic and energy catastrophes a la carte.

They all stand to gain from the blood of young Ukrainians, from their sacrifice for a set of conditions that were never going to be met even when all the world knew it before a single shot was fired. They played Russian roulette with a country and most people celebrating its sacrifice for global evil can’t point to it on a map. They all cry out in unison like one mindless drone across the earth: “Keep dying youngbloods! The war will only end with more war!”

Now we can see the wave rising at the border of Poland and Ukraine, on the horizon set for a prearranged destiny that nobody wants besides those with nothing to risk. All their instruments of war crossing the border will ensure that the war will surely end with more war.

You can see the wave of youngbloods across the muddy fields. They wore their boots out running for the Oligarchs safely in London. They were there in late February, forced to stay and fight. The young men in cheap nylon ski jackets, trapped in their national prison, kicked off the trains, stopped at the borders, told to go and die for the Oligarchs safely on their yachts in Monaco.

“Putin is evil young man, don’t you know that?” The youngbloods nod in agreement and move their gaze toward the ground utterly disgusted with themselves for nodding and not asking, “Why?”

The baby-faced boys of Kyiv fresh from their gaming chairs and Uber Eats delivery routes. Once giddily bouncing from school classes to casual conversations at cafes that young people have. A rifle stuffed into their hands, three days of performative training, and a swift shove to the meat grinders. Forcibly conscripted into the NATO death machine.

The war must continue and will only end with more war. Five hundred million for more war. Seven hundred million. Do I hear eight hundred million? Do I hear nine hundred? 44 billion?

There’s money to wash through the national laundering operations pouring forth from the U.S. Department of treasury like a fire hose plugged into the central bank of the fourth most corrupt country on earth. Too many pockets need lining before the youngbloods can be called back home from the fronts.

All wars really end with a negotiated peace. Not this one. The word peace is forbidden. So is the word diplomacy.

Even when Russia has mopped up the final villages for liberation in the Donbas and taken Odessa in the south, and the final Ukrainian Nazis are rounded up for trials and detention and a decade henceforth after all regions are flying the Trikolor flag, the Americans will be finding more weapons to send and demanding the comic find more youngbloods to sacrifice.

Their mothers and sisters sit in Polish and German refugee shelters, waiting for news. That dreaded news that no mother ever wants. It’s the waiting that’s most painful. The mothers know the Oligarchs agreed to the war. And the mothers know that western powers created the war. And the mothers know that the cocaine comic who ran on a peace mandate acquiesced to the war before showing his bloody fangs to the parliaments of the world begging for more weapons of war and more money and more cocaine and claimed “democracy” was at stake, as he was told.

And the mothers know it will be their sons who die for the Oligarchs, the western war powers, and the cocaine comic. They all dreamed of riches that could be justified by making Russia suffer and turning half of Ukraine into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The mothers know their sons will be the ones to make their dreams come true.

And if they don’t know all this now, they will know it very soon one day after they get that call. And start asking questions. Why did my son have to die for this? Didn’t his dreams ever matter? How about my dreams for him?

It’s been two years in the fields, on the trucks, in the bombed-out concrete ruins of old brutalist apartment blocks, now gone forever. The only silver lining of the war. Thousands of youngbloods are already dead. (600,000 dead Ukrainian troops, 80,000 dead Russians.)

The living youngbloods are skinny, thirsty, tired. Their boots are worn down at the toes and heels. They haven’t showered for weeks. An American colonel yells orders at them with a southern drawl they can barely understand.

Soon the war will heat up. The eastern cauldrons will form. The Russians will surround them. The supply lines will grow thin and then stop and even with no water, food, or ammunition left to fight, the commands will come over the radios to the youngbloods of Ukraine, “The war will only end, with more war. Hold your positions.”

And the youngbloods who were conscripted into the NATO-CIA meat grinder will one day find themselves on some godforsaken pile of unfarmed dirt. They will look to their right flank and see Nazi hooligans that bullied and beat them at school and threatened to shoot them in the back if they deserted. Then to their left flank and see the pink flicking uvula of a screaming American Colonel they cannot comprehend, and in that moment of chaos and confusion and inevitable madness that they were forced into, they will grab their unloaded rifles and charge the Russian line.

A newfound burst of energy propels their skinny legs forward directly to the phalanx of Chechen warriors, eager to get their bayonets into Azov hearts. The youngbloods are racing, they’re in it, they’re moving now, they’re getting there. They haven’t felt more alive since they were told to die.

Their faces light up with smiles as they confront the inevitable, which finally makes sense as they meet it on their own terms, in their own way. As they hear the first cracks of Russian bullets overhead they turn to one another with the only sane weapon they have left and burst out in fits of raucous laughter. As youngbloods do."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Russia, China Give World a Glimpse of What WWIII Could Look Like"

"Russia, China Give World a Glimpse 

of What WWIII Could Look Like"

by Gerald Celente

"Russia and China are not natural allies and some geopolitical observers say it is remarkable that the countries have developed such a close relationship in such a relatively short amount of time. On Tuesday, in a remarkable show of unity, the two countries flew strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan - just outside Japanese and South Korean air defense zones - in what Reuters called a “pointed farewell to U.S. President Joe Biden as he concluded a trip to Asia.”

One U.S. official tried to use the joint exercise as an example of why India should not rely on Moscow. “It also shows that Russia will stand with China in the East and South China Seas, not with other Indo-Pacific states,” the official told The Financial Times. Japan said it scrambled fighter jets due to the security threat.

A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber takes off during Russian-Chinese 

military aerial exercises. (Russian Defense Ministry)

Russia said in a statement that the bombers - Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers and Chinese H-6 bombers - did not break international law. Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said during a news conference that “the fact that this action was taken during the Quad summit makes it more provocative than in the past.”

“As the international community responds to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the fact that China took such action in collaboration with Russia, which is the aggressor, is cause for concern. It cannot be overlooked,” he said. Japan and South Korea said they scrambled fighter jets after at least four Chinese and four Russian warplanes in response.

A Chinese H-6 bomber flies over the East China Sea on 24 May. 

(Defense Ministry of Japan)

(The Quad summit is held among the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India…and its mission is to counter China in the Pacific region. Biden, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Australia’s Anthony Albanese, met in Tokyo on Tuesday.)

Despite the weeks of pressure from the U.S. and European countries, Beijing has refused to criticize Russia and has, instead, blamed the West for having set the stage for the war. China said in March that it would like to bring its relationship with Russia to “a higher level.”

“The Ukrainian issue… is not only the outbreak of the long term accumulation of security conflicts in Europe but also the result of the Cold War mentality and group confrontation,” Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said at the time. “In the long run, we should learn the lessons of the Ukraine crisis, respond to the legitimate security concerns of all parties based on the principles of mutual respect and indivisibility of security.”

China is Russia’s top trade partner with total trade last year jumping 35.9 percent to a record $146.9 billion. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited China in March and described a new “world order.” “We, together with you [China], and with our sympathizers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order,” Lavrov said in a video statement.

A senior U.S. official told Reuters that the exercise, which was the first since the 24 February invasion of Ukraine, is likely a message from China that it will not walk away from Russia. “Instead, the exercise shows that China is ready to help Russia defend its east while Russia fights in its west,” the official said.

Gerald Celente, the publisher of The Trends Journal, spoke with Gordon Chang in April and the China-expert said Beijing gave the green light for Russia to invade Ukraine, and supported Russia’s war effort with “elevated commodity purchases.”

Japan, like Taiwan, is watching the events in Ukraine unfold while considering their neighbor China and their own security if Beijing ever decides to act militarily in the region. Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, summed up his government’s fears a few weeks ago during a visit in London with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He told reporters that Ukraine could very well be “East Asia tomorrow.” Tokyo is trying to get a read on what the Biden administration would do if China invades. Japan has been more vocal about its support of Taipei in recent years.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told the Associated Press late last year that there will be no concessions when it comes to China’s security and “no one should underestimate the strong determination, firm will and strong ability of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing to help Chinese President Xi Jinping kick off the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics was viewed by many in the media as an effort by the two to show a united front against the West.

Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center in Washington, told The New Yorker that the pledge between the two countries illustrates that they will stand “shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily.” “This statement might be looked back on as the beginning of Cold War III,” he said."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"WW3 To Start in Black Sea: Trump Predicts Nuclear War!"

Canadian Prepper, 5/26/22:

"WW3 To Start in Black Sea: Trump Predicts Nuclear War!"

○

Related, must watch:

"The Shocking Truth About What's Happening"

○

"Biden Readies Approval Of Long-Range Rockets To Ukraine -

 Russia Warns Over 'Red Line'"

"Russia Says Destroyed Western Weapons Sent To Ukraine"

We're just begging for a nuclear war...

Musical Interlude: Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence"

Full screen recommended.

Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Studio

Singer David Draiman

810,964,155 views...

Full screen recommended.

Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence", Live

131,148,403 views...

I've listened to this 100 times, and I still cry.

There's "something" here,

And if there are words for it I don't know them...

Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 5/26/22"

Full screen recommended.

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News 5/26/22"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

"It's Going To Get Much Worse; Everything Bubble Will Burst; Dollar Stores Boom; Foreclosure Wave

Jeremiah Babe 5/26/22:

"It's Going To Get Much Worse; Everything Bubble Will Burst;

 Dollar Stores Boom; Foreclosure Wave"